Saturday 9th May we held our Blackpool Junior Congress once again at the wonderful St Cuthbert’s Academy. It was a smashing day, and we have lots of people to thank, more on that soon.
We had 80-plus children attend on the day, and we ran six sections with the top two sections, the Queens and Rooks, as a 5-round all-play-all event.
Players competed in the other four sections over 6 rounds as a standard swiss.
There were a lot of interesting games, some great checkmates, quite a few blunders and the occasional stalemate.
Everyone who played managed to win or draw some games. So congratulations to all the children who took part.
These events would not be successful without the team behind them, so thank you to all the section leads on the day – Gordon, Jacqui, Sam, Ravi and Simon and of course the Junior Organiser Colin. Thank you to our coaches on the day John and Aiden, who kept the kids occupied between games with some devilish puzzles and tactics.
However, an even bigger thank you to Nick and Nicola for a lovely warm welcome to the school, and a cracking tuckshop for the kids.
Onto the results, the full set of results are available on the Chess Results website, you can check on how well your child played and also who their opponents were. To swap between sections click on the section URL on the website. When you first click the link you will need to click on the “Show Tournament Details”
Results
In the Green Pawns we had joint winners, Edward and Finn! They both scored 5 out of 6. Well done!
In the Red Pawns we had joint winners again, with Lisaanth and Thomas scoring 5 out of 6.
Onto our Knights section. Once again, we has joint winners, both scoring ….. you guessed it 5 out of 6. Our winners were Brandon and Charlie, well done guys!
Moving up the difficulty ladder, now we are getting to the sections with our stronger players. The Bishops section. Once again, we had joint winners – and can you guess what the winning score was?
Yes, 5 out of 6 again. It shows how competitive the chess was. Our winners, and congratulations to both Aiden and Ibraheem.
Now onto our top two sections, the all-play-all sections. The Rooks and the Queens. 6 players in each section, playing each other.
These players are the top-rated players at the event, so no straightforward games for any of them.
Because these events are serious, we use tie-breaks in these sections (Rooks and Queens). In the Rooks we had two players scoring 4 out of 5. However, based on direct encounter tie-break, the winner was Nathan and Marcus was our runner up. Congratulations to both.
Finally, our top section, the Queens. These are the top six players at the event. The winner with a 100% record, the only player to score 100% on the day and a performance rating of 1908, was Michal from Wigan Community Chess. Well done Michal. Runner-up with 4 out of 5 was Saanvi. Well done Saanvi.
That wraps up the winners rostrum from the event. Once again congratulations to all the children that took part and we look forward to seeing you all again at the next event.
The next event will be the Lancashire Junior Championships, taking place at Westholme School in Blackburn on Sunday 7th June. We have a limit of 100 entries, so submit your entries fast.
There we will crown our Lancashire Champion and our Girls Champion, alongside our U16, U14, U12, U9 and U7 champions.
