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Chess Success

Any English School which contains children of Primary School age may enter the English Primary Schools' National Championships. The number of schools entering varies from year to year but usually the number is in excess of three hundred schools. The participating schools are placed in zones and to reach the semi-finals it is necessary to enter the zonal competition. This year Highgate were in Zone thirteen, which has Ilford as its centre. In a large zone, such as ours, sixteen to twenty schools battle for inclusion in the semi-finals. Schools not finishing in the top five or six in their zone are unlikely to qualify.

This year the Highgate Under 11 team finished third in their zone and the Under 9s were second; both teams qualified comfortably.
 
Under 11 team: Isaac Sanders, Jacob Chevalier-Drori, Tom Disley, Misha Voloboev, Neel Nanda, Sam Smith

Under 9 team: Isobel Sanders, Alex Law, Ingimar Tomasson, Rohin Mittal, Alisha Raja, David Gran

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The Results: The Under 9 team played six matches winning two, drawing two and losing two. Their best result was probably their draw with Haberdashers, though their heaviest scoring was against Coldfall Primary with a score of 4.5 to 0.5. Ingimar Tomasson top scored with five points out of six on board three (four wins and two draws). Alex Law and Isobel Sanders scored heavily on the top boards (four out of six) and no-one registered a zero. The total of fifteen points placed the team 16th out of thirty-two teams, earning a well-deserved silver standard award.

The Under 11 team also played six matches winning four and losing two. The one poor result was against The Hall where only Tom Disley’s draw on board three averted a whitewash. Otherwise results were good and included a fine win against a powerful Eltham team and a mighty surge saw the team rack up 8.5 points out of 10 in the final two rounds, including a 4.5-0.5 win against Westminster in the final around. Top scorers were Isaac Sanders with five out of six on board one and Tom Disley undefeated with four wins and two draws on board three. All the other scoring players registered wins at various times and a team total of 18.5 points saw the team to a magnificent 4th place (out of 42 teams) and our first ever Gold Standard award. The top three teams went through to the all-England final which we only missed by two points.

All the players deserve high praise for their determination and fine sporting behaviour. The accompanying parents were enormously helpful and supportive to the great benefit of the players. We say good-bye now to our Year 6 players but the young up-and-coming squad are talented and a very bright future is anticipated.  AC

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