Thirteen children and parents made the trip to Kenilworth School on the 23rd April to take part in the first Warwickshire Junior Team league event. 16 teams had entered from around the country, and Leicestershire were represented with one team in the 1st division and two equal strength teams in the 2nd division.
The 1st division put in an excellent performance, with some of the other teams containing players who had played at international levels. They finished in a creditable 4th place beating Manchester Grammar school on tie break. Yuvraj was the top scorer with 4 points over the day, showing excellent fighting spirit to comeback from an early mistake to turn the tables on his opponents. Sofia also played very solid chess, being the last to finish at least once and scoring 3 points on top board.
In the second division Leicester Junior 2 came back from a couple of early losses to be in contention for third place medals going into the last round. However, they were not able to overcome a strong Coventry team in the last round and finished in 5th place overall. Top scorer and unbeaten in any of the team matches was Shaylan with 4.5 points out of 5.
Leicester Juniors 3 put in an excellent performance to finish in 3rd place overall, with all the team members winning medals! Well done to Matthew, Jennifer, Shiven and Sia. All the team members put in good performances, and I was particularly impressed with Matthew’s concentration, making full use of his time on the clock to score an excellent 4.5 points on top board.
Well done to all the children who took part. There are plans to hold more of these events in the future and I hope to enter lots of Leicester teams moving forwards!
