A number of Leicester juniors played in this 6 round swiss open congress. Rakym Serik, who was playing in the Major (U160) had a remarkable competition at this level to score 3.5 pts out of 6 and which could so easily have been 4 had he accepted a draw in his last game before an endgame blunder turned the tables against him.

In the Minor (U110) Joseph Ward-Langman had a great unbeaten day on 5pts to win the section jointly with the Notts University student with whom he drew in the last round. Umar Syed also played in the section and scored 2.5pts.

Jason Lv and Daniel Chen both played in this event (an England U11 Trial qualifier) scoring 3pts and 2pts respectively with Jason playing particularly well to achieve a half-norm.

A young Leicester team in the 2nd division finished 14th out off 22 teams. After a difficult first day with only a point from the first three rounds, the team rallied well in the 2nd day to draw in the 4th round and win the 5th to finish on 4 points. Jason Lv had a superb competition on board 3 winning all 5 matches and Sasha Kerbel who just played on the Sunday also won both his matches. The full team was Daniel Chen, Umar Syed, Sasha Kerbel, Jason Lv, Rakshai Muthusamy and Kareem Patel.

The 2nd part of the super competitive London Junior Chess Championships was held after Christmas and a number of Leicestershire Juniors took part:

U18/21 (6 rounds)

5th= Kishan Modi 3.5pts
10th= Shyam Modi 3pts
10th= Tom Brown 3pts

U12 Major (9 rounds)

15= Daniel Chen 5.5pts
28= Umar Syed 4pts

U12 Minor (9 rounds)

7th= Jason Lv 6pts

U8

Olivia Chen 3pts

In a very competitive Rooks section three players (Arjun Vadgama, Kareem Patel & Lindsay Pyun) scored 3pts out of 4 and had to be separated on tie-break. Arjun was to win due to the fact his loss only came in the very last round (ironically to Kareem Patel). This tiebreak system was used rather than ‘head to head’ record as the 3 players involved didn’t all play eachother.

In the Knights section, Khaalid Patel (Kareem’s younger brother) won the section with 4.5pts out of 5 ahead of promising newcomer Kajus Mikalajunas who scored 4 points.

In the first weekend of the prestigious London Junior Chess Championships (one of the most competitive UK competitions in the calendar) on the 16th/17th December two Leicestershire juniors competed with distinction.

In the U10 Major section Rakym Serik finished 4th= in a field of 115 players with 5.5/7. His only loss came against the outright winner of the whole competition.

In the U14 Minor Section, Umar Syed (who will be playing in the U12 event later in the month) came a fine 3rd= with 4.5/6

Last year the Leicestershire U100 team containing 7 juniors won the National Final. This year Leicestershire have also launched a U120 team to accommodate the growing number of juniors graded over 100. The U100 team have already won their first two matches this season against Staffs 7-5 and Notts 7.5 – 4.5 which assures them of a top two finish in the Midland group and qualification for the national stages. Five juniors played in both matches (Anika Khare, Thomas Blay, Rory Haywood, Austin Meynell & Rakshai Muthusamy) with Thomas & Austin having won both games.

Leicestershire juniors Daniel Chen, Anika Khare and Jason Lv competed for the victorious Midlands team in the Quadrangular U12 team event in Liverpool. All competed well with Anika notably winning all three games. George Worrow-Goodin played for the Midlands/Ireland composite U14 team.

There was a tie for first place in the Kings section of the December Rapidplay as both Rory Haywood and Umar Syed finished up on 3 wins and then drew when they played each other.

In the Rooks section, Lindsay Pyun took first place scoring 5 wins out of 5 with Noor Datoo and Arooj Mahajan finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively on 4 points, with Arooj taking the Knights award for the top player graded below 150 on the Leicester Junior Chess Club internal grades.

A large team of 35 children competed for Leicestershire in the 4 Counties Invitational event against Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire in Rugby on Sunday 26th November. This year there was also an U18 section in addition to U11s, U11 Girls and U9s.

A strong Leicestershire U18 team (8 boards) finished 2nd with wins against both Northamptonshire (4.5 – 3.5)  and Oxfordshire (6.5-1.5) but were beaten by Warwickshire in the first round (5.5-2.5), who won all three matches thus taking the title. Sasha Kerbel had a great competition winning all three games on board 7, whilst team leader Tom Brown was unbeaten with 2.5/3 and both George Worrow-Goodin and Peter Mottram-Epson recorded two wins.

The U11 team (8 boards) also finished 2nd and so very nearly won it, losing only on tie break to Warwickshire, both counties having beaten Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire and drawn against each other. The separating factor was the fact that Warwickshire’s wins were by slightly more convincing margins so that they were 16-13 ahead of us on overall game points. Nevertheless it was quite an improvement on last year’s performance when we finished a fairly distant 3rd behind Oxon and Warks. Rakym Serik was invincible on board 2 with 3 straight wins, whilst Umar Syed was unbeaten with 2/3 on board 3 and Kareem Patel and Austin Meynell also both won 2 games.

The U11 Girls (4 boards) drew their matches against both Warwickshire and Northamptonshire but were well beaten by overall winners Oxfordshire (3.5-0.5) and finished in 3rd overall. All members of the team won at least one game.

The U9s (8 boards) were making their debut in the competition, as last year we simply didn’t have the numbers to raise a team. In that context 3rd overall with a good win over Northamptonshire (5-3) was a pretty decent result and it’s worth noting that the overall winners Warwickshire (who beat us 8-0) have one of the very best U9 teams in the country. Joshua Tang, who will still be U9 next year and was our board 2, had a good 2nd round win and gave the Warwickshire no 2 a very good run for their money in the 1st round, whilst Noor Datoo (board 4) was the only member of the team who registered a win against a strong Oxfordshire team in the last round.

Teams:

U18s: Tom Brown, Ben Raine, Matthew Lo, George Worrow-Goodin, Peter Mottram-Epson, Alastair Mottram-Epson, Sasha Kerbel, Anika Khare, reserves: Rory Haywood, Rakshai Muthusamy

U11s: Daniel Chen, Rakym Serik, Umar Syed, Jason Lv, Austin Meynell, Kareem Patel, Morris Walker, Anant Kapoor, Aryan Ankolekar, Rizwan Riaz (reserve)

U11 Girls: Hope Wheway, Zaara Syed, Lindsay Pyun, Olivia Chen, Hafsa Syed (reserve)

U9s: Evan Miles, Joshua Tang, Alex Cimurs, Noor Datoo, Khaalid Patel, Alex Shen, Arooj Mahajan, Shey Shah-Thakerar, Holly Fowkes, Catherine Lv

Detailed individual results and team crosstables are here

U18s

1st – Warks 6pts (19.5)

2nd Leics 4pts (13.5)

3rd Northants 2pts (10.5)

4th Oxon 0pts (4.5)

U11s

1st Warks 5pts (16)

2nd Leics 5pts (13)

3rd Oxon 2pts (10)

4th Northants 0pts (9)

U11 Girls

1st Oxon 5pts (9.5)

2nd Warks 4pts (8)

3rd Leics 2pts (4.5)

4th Northants 1pt (2)

U9s

1st Warks 6pts (21)

2nd Oxon 4pts (12.5)

3rd Leics 2pts (6.5)

4th Northants 0pts (8)