Essex cruise to Title

Jamboree Tournaments have a habit of being cliff-hangers. The nature of the competition, in which each team member plays opposition from just three of the fifteen opposing teams, normally leads to close finishes in which a handful of key games swing the final result one way or another. It was therefore a little surprising that when Essex won the English Primary Schools' Chess Association Championship in Basingstoke on May 13th that they did so by the remarkably large margin of 3½ points.

Earlier in the day there had been little sign of the rout it was to become. The first round yielded 9½ points to the Essex cause, but then so it did for Richmond. The one game between the two leading sides was Michel Baumgart's victory over the Richmond board 12. Essex's one piece of good fortune on the top 12 boards occurred on board 9 where Ranita Klimach's opponent generously stalemated her. Ricky Martin and Joseph Bloomfield both allowed promising positions to slip through a failure to castle but on the remaining boards excellent and mostly one-sided wins were enjoyed by all 8 Essex victors. The key game this round, although this was not to become clear until later, was Simon Payne's patient and difficult win against the N.W. London board 7. Simon's opponent had two rooks and a bishop against Simon's queen and rook, but Simon's king was the more exposed. There was a time when his opponent amost certainly missed a draw by repetition and another, allegedly, when she could have checkmated him.

The team talk before round 2 stressed (with suitable threats) the importance of removing the monarch from the scene of the action as early as possible and none of the three losses which occurred could be attributed to lack of king safety in the early part of the game. Simon Payne was the one unlucky player who got caught up in a move race when his position was just on the promising side of level, losing a game he should at least have drawn. On this occasion the Richmond opponent was on board 2, and since Alex O'Toole has been on splendid form for about two months (he won £150 at the Southend Congress, not a bad haul for an 8 year old) the one-sided encounter simply underlined the fact that, in Dana Hawrami and Alex O'Toole, Essex have two players of Board 1 calibre. Matthew Porter won very quickly for the second consecutive round and this time, the Saffron Walden pair of Joseph Bloomfield and Ricky Martin made short work of their opponents while their own kings remained unmolested in their well-constructed castles.

The final round turned into a rout. Richmond, whose score pattern usually involves a gradual decline in the points yield per round as the day progresses, did it in style on this occasion. Their first two rounds brought in 17 points (9½ and 7½) but round 3 gave them only another 4 and none of those came in the top half. They were therefore overhauled by North West London, whose score of 10/12 in the final round precisely matched that of Essex, hence the final margin of victory. Essex's win against Richmond on this occasion was down to Simon Payne again. This was a very close and well-fought game in which I did not spot any obvious error by either side. An ending was reached in which both sides had three pawns on the queen-side to one each on the king-side, but Simon had a bishop and the Richmond player had a knight. All the textbooks say the bishop has the advantage, and so it proved here as at the end Simon's bishop blocked black's f-pawn while supporting the advance of his a- and h-pawns.

Four of the Essex players completed a clean sweep. Alex O'Toole was probably the pick of the bunch, as his last round added the scalp of the N.W. London board 2 to that of the Richmond player he had collected earlier. His brother George, still a month short of his 7th birthday, played equally positive chess and had no difficulty at any stage. Matthew Porter, on board 6, also breezed his way through the day and Michel Baumgart was another player to complete his games without any difficulty. James Lacon should have scored 3 but he made one careless mistake in round 3 which allowed an instant mate after James had won material and built up a very promising position.

This excellent result augurs well for Essex in future years. Perhaps the most encouraging aspect was between the rounds when the pokemon cards, which certain players had brought for their amusement, lay forgotten while team member played blitz games or analysed positions with one another.

Boards 13-16 were reserves whose scores did not count towards the team totals.

Essex players (two missing!) immediately after winning the Under 9 Championship 2000.

Essex team: (back row, from left) Nathanael Lutton, Adam Jellett, Joseph Bloomfield, Jon Hockley, James Lacon, Matthew Porter, Joe Wass, Simon Payne.
Front row: Ricky Martin, Dana Hawrami, Subin Sen, George O'Toole, Hamish Hore, Michel Baumgart, Ranita Klimach, Alex O'Toole.
Aged hippy: Peter Walker (Team Manager)

Photographs: David Lacon

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