Southern Gigafinal
Saturday/Sunday 9th-10th July 2011
Rivermead Leisure Centre, Reading, Berkshire

The UK Chess Challenge journey started back in January in school chess clubs across the country with over 60,000 children entering nationwide.

Over 350 Sussex children qualified for the Sussex megafinal held in May, of whom over 100 qualified for the Southern Gigafinal. Of those, 98 took up their places, becoming part of the last 2000 players left in the competition nationwide - a fantastic achievement.

Younger boys (U7 - U10) competed on the Saturday, while all other age groups and all girl sections competed on the Sunday.

The Sussex players also had a loyal supporter, in the shape of Jonathan, who heroically attended both days! Thanks also to Mike Forster who assisted with board stewarding in the younger age groups.

Children competed in sections according to age and gender.

Players who scored 3.5 points or more earned a rosette.

Section winners earned the title Ultimo (boys), or Ultima (girls), and qualified for the final stage of the competition - the national Terafinal in August. Those coming second or third qualified for the 'Challengers' competition which runs alongside the Terafinal.

Sections with large entries were split into parallel sub-sections, resulting in multiple ultimos in some age groups. The rules of the competition state that in the event of a tie for first place the prize money can be shared, but there has to be a play-off to determine the title holder.

Congratulations to our Terafinal and Challengers qualifiers:-

Special mention to William Allin (U8), Madeleine Liu (U9G), Cassie Graham (U10G), Joe Thorley (U11), Toby Harris and Stephen Riley (U13) - who, despite scoring 4.5 found themselves just missing qualification.

Well done also to those who scored an excellent 4 points:-
Laura Borland & Oliver Manchester (U7), Oliver Howell, Henry Roser, Aron Swanepoel, Oscar Udsholt-Clayton & Lucy Bennet-Stevens (all U8), Matthew Forster, Freddie Coleman, Freddie Smith & Hannah Sutton (all U9), Daniel Gooda, Sam Lennard, Thomas Finn, Rosie Burke & Phoebe Ralph (all U10), Billy Twigge-Molecey (U11), Matthew Howell, Ben Simpson (both U12), Daniel Sutton (U14) and Morgan Blake (U15).

Well done to all the Sussex players who competed - just to qualify for the Gigafinal is an achievement in itself.

Full results are available on the UK Chess Challenge website.