News

The TERAFINAL, the final stage of this year’s UK Chess Challenge took place in Daventry on the weekend, 12th and 13th, August. No, I wasn’t there but found I was able to follow it all on my computer with Chess24 for the live games in the Terafinal and the results, with all the game scores, for the Challengers Tournaments, using chess-results.com.

Yichen Han, still officially an Under-9, scored a splendid 4½ out of 6, in the Terafinal itself. All but one of his opponents were older than he was, some by a considerable margin, so this was a fantastic result. By my calculations, though only 4th= overall, he should have won the prize for best Under-11 as well as best Under-9.

Also in this section Zheming Zhang scored 4/6. He suffered a bad loss in Round 3, when his opponent playing an unusual gambit, scored with a very strong K-side attack. After this he was never really in contention for one of the big prizes.

There were two Challengers tournaments; James Moreby, the top rated player in Challengers A, was never seriously challenged. On 5/5 he was able to agree a very soft draw in ten moves to take the money. He was probably in a winning position when he offered the draw. 5½/6 won him the competition by a full point.

Hanif Zaman, at 18 one of the old men in this tournament, scored half marks. He might have hoped for more than 3/6 but it was probably a fair result. Sai Chinmayee Kumaar was possibly a bit overawed in this competition. 2/6 is a fair enough score at her age, but she will probably be a little disappointed not to have done better

In the Challengers B tournament, Max Turner was, like James, the highest graded player. He went through the tournament undefeated, but simply drew too many games. 4½/6 gave him a share of fourth place.

All the games in this event are available to play through on chess-results.com. Go to the website, click on ENG for the list of English tournaments. Then go to the tournament that concerns you and click where it says ‘there are … games available for download’.

Well done to all who took part in our NJCA Congress in Ponteland on 26th November!

Results Here

Please note this is event is not organised by the NJCA (see www.chessdorm.com for more details)

The first Great North Rapidplay & Blitz Congress is being held at the Lancastrian Suite in Gateshead on the 29th of October.

There will be four sections, the Foundation (U50), Minor (U100), Major (U150) and Open. for more information about the congress. The bar/refreshments will be open from 11am – 3pm. The entry fee for all sections will be £15.

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