24 children from around the county represented Leicestershire in the inaugural Midlands County Team Championships which were held at Nottingham High School on Saturday 16th November.
The children all acquitted themselves brilliantly over the day, competing against children from Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire and Northamptonshire. Due to their efforts the Under 9 team won bronze medals for finishing in 3rd place overall. The Girls went one step better finishing in 2nd place overall winning silver medals and a team trophy!
Under 11 Team
The team started brilliantly with an excellent 4 – 4 draw with the highest rated team Oxfordshire (top board rated 1950!) and then a strong 8-0 against Worcestershire. We were perhaps unlucky to them be paired against the strong Warwickshire teams meaning that we played the Gold, Silver and Bronze winning teams during the day.
Special mentions for Zara Mehta for transferring from the girls team to take on the daunting top board job (including opponents with ratings of 1917 and 1762). Our top joint top scorers were Chris Rufus Pons (1200 performance) and Finbar Millen (1100 performance) with 3 wins each
Under 9 Team
With 7 members of the team unrated before the start I was unable to predict how we would do, and the team but in a brilliant performance to finished in 3rd place overall. This included a 4.5 – 3.5 win over the strong Oxfordshire side and a 4-4 draw with the Warwickshire Under 9 team
Our top scorers were Advait (top board and a 1032 rating performance), Dillon with 3 out of 4 and Oskar with a perfect 3 out of 3! The team all showed great team spirit throughout and I am very confident all the children who played for this team will go onto represent Leicestershire for many years to come.
Girls Team
I was a bit nervous that transferring Zara over to the Under 11 team would cause the girls team to struggle, but they performed brilliantly to finish in 2nd place overall and take the 2nd place trophy! Again the girls showed brilliant team spirit throughout, and I was really impressed about how they showed maturity in selecting the team for the last round themselves with Rayshali very unselfishly offering to take the reserve spot for the last game.
All the girls finished with positive scores over the day, and special mention for Aadharshini who finished with a perfect 5 out of 5 and a 1789 rating performance!
You can see detailed results here
Girls teams – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061189.aspx?lan=1&art=83
Under 9 team – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061190.aspx?lan=1&turdet=YES
Under 11 team – https://chess-results.com/tnr1061192.aspx?lan=1&art=0&rd=5&turdet=YES