Thursday 23 July 2009

Shropshire juniors reach final stage of UK Chess Challenge

Two Shropshire Juniors have reached the final stage of the UK Chess Challenge with a place in the Challengers Tournament at the Terrafinal to be held next month in Warwick. Alex Taylor (Adams Grammar and Newport Chess Club) came equal third in the U18 Gigafinal last weekend with 4 points from 6 matches; and Athar Mehmood (Wrekin College and Newport Chess Club) came equal second in the U12 section with 5/6, only narrowly missing out on the top spot and qualification for the Terrafinal. This is a very impressive result for both players as these Gigafinal sections are very tough at the top with a number of junior internationals present!

In total, 12 Shropshire juniors took part in the Gigafinal in Manchester which was the Northern final of the competition which involves around 70,000 young chess players in its opening stages!

All of the Shropshire players performed well against tough opposition. The full results with club/school in brackets:

U7B Greg Jones (Shrewsbury) 2.5/6
U11B Joe Booth (St Georges Sch, Shrewsbury) 2/6
U12B Athar Mehmood (Newport) 5/6 - equal 2nd
U13B Matthew Best (Shrewsbury) 2/6
U13B Mark Richards (Newport) 4/6
U13G Angelica Dean (Shrewsbury) 3/6
U14B Francis Rooney (Shrewsbury) 3/6
U15B Peter Mellor (Coddon) 2.5/6
U16B Jamie Allan (Newport) 2.5/6
U16B Sam Eardley (Adams Grammar) 2/6
U17B Nathanael Paul (Coddon) 2.5/6
U18B Alex Taylor (Newport) 4/6 - equal 3rd

Thursday 2 July 2009

Shropshire chess AGM

The report submitted to the Shropshire Chess AGM summarising the highlights of the past season is available to download. Download AGM report