The chess season is now in full swing with Emanuel playing eight Surrey league fixtures since September, with us also fielding a ‘B’ team for five of these matchups. After a slow start to the 2022/3 campaign, we have since won three of our last four matches, with many great individual performances.
Our opponents have included Hampton, Kingston Grammar, RGS Guildford, Tiffin and Sutton Grammar, all of which take competitive chess very seriously. So, we were delighted with our recent wins against Tiffin and RGS Guildford (both home and away).
An impressive fourteen players have represented the school so far this season, with the strongest contingent in Year 12 (Lucien, Will, Miles, Constantin, Robbie, and Charlie). These boys have been backed up by the highly experienced Zeeshan (Year 13) and the rookie Pavle, who although has been a late starter to chess has improved incredibly fast.
Our Middle School players include Karan and Harry from Year 10, who are supported by Anand and Fred from Year 9. All four boys have scored notable victories, with three of them making a strong contribution to our ‘B’ team. Karan, who has been playing since Hill Form, has settled comfortably in our ‘A’ team, recording an impressive nine victories and a draw, with Anand notching six victories and a draw. Karan, who is our highest scoring player, is also superb at encouraging and supporting our younger and developing players.
Our two youngest players Lila and Taran, who are in Year 6 and 7, continue to impress and have also both recorded convincing victories. In our most recent match against RGS both posted double wins against much older opposition. We are expecting these two to continue terrorising opposition ‘B’ teams for the remainder of the season and will undoubtedly graduate to the ‘A’ team next season.
We still have a run of three fixtures before chess takes a break after Easter and hope for both strong team and individual performances in these matches.
A big thank you to Mr Coleman, our Chess Professional, for the support!
Mr Jones (Senior Librarian)