The qualifying tournament resulted in a tie for first place between Ieuan Fenton and Athar Mehmood, with Athar getting the trophy on the tie break from sum of progressive scores, while Francis Rooney came in third place.
The qualifiers, who will take part in the Megafinal to be held in Herefordshire on 1 May, are:
Ieaun Fenton U18
Sam Eardley U17
Jonathan Newey U15
Francis Rooney U15
Matthew Best U14
Athar Mehmood U14
Heath Pearson U9
Take part in the UK’s largest chess competition!
Shropshire Junior Chess Academy is holding a qualifying event for the UK Chess Challenge on Sat 20 March at Trinity School, Butts Lane, Ford, Shropshire, with the kind permission of the head teacher.
The event is a major national competition that attracts around 70,000 children each year. Those who take part in the Shropshire event on 20 March have the chance to qualify for a regional Megafinal in Herefordshire in May. And beyond that there is a Gigafinal and even a Terrafinal to find the champion of champions!
Entry fee £3.
A number of junior chess players from the academy play for county teams and take part in a range of competitions against other juniors and adults.
"Whether you are a budding chess master, or have just learned the moves, you will get a warm welcome at the academy," says joint county chess organiser Steve Rooney.
The Academy meets at Trinity School, Ford, near Shrewsbury from 10am to 12pm. If you would like to attend, please contact Steve Rooney on 01694 723724 or email steve.rooney@busandcoach.com
The first game finished was on board 3 when Shrewsbury's Chris Lovejoy overlooked a combination from young opponent David Birtenshaw which lead to checkmate. Then a rook and pawn ending on board four went Shrewsbury's way to equal the score as Matthew Best overcame Luke West. On board one Shrewsbury's 'honorary' junior Ian Davies built up a strong attack and won his match against Mark Richards.
Henry Graham then clinched the match for Shrewsbury with a win on board five against Richard Heath. Henry got a two pawn advantage then sensibly swapped off major pieces and eventually won a rook as well.
The final game which wouldn't affect the final score was nonetheless the most closely-fought of the match. Shrewsbury's Francis Rooney defended stoutly against an attack on his kingside from his former team mate Jonathan Newey who now plays for Newport. The final stages of the game saw Jonathan a piece up but Francis' advanced pawn caused him a lot of problems with a number of mating threats from rook and king. Jonathan decided to give up his rook for the advanced pawn leaving him with a knight and three pawns against the rook. Perilously short of time, Francis found a way of forcing off a pawn and then Jonathan had to give away his queen promoted from a pawn to avoid checkmate.
The final seconds involved a desperate chase of king against knight and pawn and showed the weakness of the knight in such situations ending up with a drawn king against king and a pawn. Great entertainment for those watching!
Shropshire was well represented at the London Chess Classic.
Congratulations to Nathanael Paul who came joint second in the Classic Weekend Under 145 event with 4/5; and to Athar Mehmood who won the Under 14 rapidplay event.
Mathew Best and Francis Rooney also attended the event on Saturday (taking their dad's along to pay for dinner!), and enjoyed watching the super grandmasters in the main theatre as well as the commentary by various British grandmasters in the analysis room which also included visits by the stars. Nigel Short was particularly entertaining in his post mortem of his game against Chinese GM Ni Hua. And the joint analysis from US GM Hikaru Nokamura and Norwegian Magnus Carlsen (currently rated world number 1) was astonishing. The speed with which these guys see things has to be seen to be believed. It was very exhausting just listening and makes you wonder whether these super GMs are actually human or some kind of higher level species!
We also bumped into former Shropshire player Tommy Cheng who is now based in Wimbledon and was competing in the Saturday rapidplay. All in all a fantastic event - do not miss the next one promised in 2010!
PS - Spot the Shropshire dads in the background to photo of Kramnik and Adams! (Photo from London Chess Classic report by John Saunders - www.londonchessclassic.com)