The Leicestershire Junior Congress (incorporating the County Championships) took place on Sunday 5th March at Leicester Grammar School with 50 entrants in the Open section and 38 in the Minor Section. Unlike previous years the sections were divided by playing level/ability rather than age in order to provide better and more balanced competition for all players and this clearly did encourage more children to enter who had previously not played outside of their school chess clubs. In the Open Section Leicestershire’s Tom Brown (156) finished top with 5 wins and and a draw in the last round against one of Nott’s top juniors Anita Somton (165), who finished 2nd overall in the section herself. In a competition within a competition, the top finishing Leics & Rutland player in the 4 age groups within the Open section took the the county champion title: Tom Brown (U18), George Worrow-Goodin (U13), Daniel Chen (U11), Evan Miles (U9). In the minor section Leicestershire’s Adam Kerbel (U11) won the section outright with an impressive 6 wins out of 6.
The major placings are listed below with detailed results on these links:
Open (>ECF 40)
U18
1st Tom Brown (Leics) 5.5pts – County U18 Champion
2nd Ben Raine (Leics) 4.5pts
3rd Rory Haywood (Leics) 4.5pts
U13
1st Anita Somton (Notts) 5pts
2nd Armaan Gogia (Notts) 5pts
3rd Mathew Gillow (Oxon) 5pts
County U13 Champion – George Worrow-Goodin (4pts)
U11
1st Daniel Chen (Leics) 4pts County U11 Champion
3rd Krishnan Srinivasan (Northants) 3.5pts
2nd Anika Khare (Leics) 3.5pts
U9
1st Zak Gillespie (Northants) 3pts
2nd Luca Gillespie (Northants) 3pts
3rd Alexander Richards (Northants) 2.5pts
County U9 Champion – Evan Miles (2pts)
Best Girl in Section: Samia Sheikh (4pts)
Minor (Ungraded or ECF <40)
U14
1st Maxim Manokhin 5pts
2nd Evan Greaves 4pts
3rd Shivali Sinha 2pts
U11
1st Adam Kerbel 6pts
2nd Zaara Syed 4pts
3rd Ashish Singh 4pts
Leics & Rutland Award: Edith Wells 3.5pts
U9
1st Roman Manokhin 4.5pts
2nd Prachi Arora 4pts
3rd Hafsa Syed 4pts
Leics & Rutland Award: Anant Kapoor 4pts
Best Girl in Section: Ayesha Narvel (4pts)