Essex win Under 18 Title

Warwickshire fall just short

Herts. win Minor Counties'

Pos	Team	Score	Rd 1	Rd 2
1	Essex	19	9	10
2	Warwickshire	15½	8	7½
3	Hertfordshire	14½	5	9½
4	Kent	12	7	5
5	Surrey	11	5½	5½
6	Cambridgeshire	8	5	3
7	Suffolk	4	2½	1½

Of all the Inter County Team Chess competitions, the one which seems to have eluded Essex for longest is the Under 18 Championship. Although the (adult) First Team has had a wait of almost 30 years since they won the Open Championships, the Essex under 18 team has not won their event since 1962.

This year, Essex were hosts and the event took place at Brentwood School, where the support staff could not have been more helpful. It had been hoped that entries would be increased this year, as there has been a steady decline in the number of teams taking part over the years and in response to this trend the BCF decided to make the event Open, reduce the time controls to all moves in 65 minutes and play 2 rounds instead of 1. In this respect the National Body can claim partial success in that the number of teams increased from 5 to 7. I suspect that there would have been rather more had the event been held in the Midlands again. It may well be the case that a central venue has been chosen more often than not, and perhaps it is no coincidence that Warwickshire's name apears on the trophy no fewer than 10 times. Middlesex have won the trophy most frequently, 16 times.

Warwickshire were definitely pre-tournament favourites. Ameet Ghasi, currently British Rapidplay Champion (the youngest ever) was their board 1 and, with a grade of 199, the highest ranking player there. Chris Charman, their board 2, is a former British age-group Champion and a very able performer. With British under 13 Champion Sabrina Chevannes on board 9 (Bobby Payne, the Essex board 3, shared this title with her) the Defending Champions looked as though they meant business.

A Jamboree event, in which each team is randomly allocated a letter to show the pairing they will follow, is the traditional manner of playing multi-team events. The draw was perhaps not kind to the Warwickshire top pair. In round 1, Ameet faced Lorin D'Costa, another 190+ player and one of the few players in the tournament hall capable of taking a point off Ameet. This is precisely what Lorin did, in one of the last Round 1 games to finish. The Warwickshire player was subject to a formidable array of pieces attacking the f7 square (black's king was on f8) and the time deficit also helped Lorin. Chris Charman had to play Ezra Lutton and this was a most convincing win for Ezra. 0 / 2 on the top two boards was not what Warwickshire had expected and two further losses left them in second place, behind Essex on 9 / 12.

The Essex top player, Lawrence Trent, had been involved in a long game against the Surrey top board, Ross Rattray, and this too had reached a time-scramble. Both sides pushed pawns, but Lawrence queened first and after that the win was in the bag. The other game between the leading sides was a win for Alan Hawrami. Four Essex players agreed draws, but three of these at least were protracted rearguard actions.

When the second round began it seemed highly likely that this would end up as a two-horse race. Few early results were forthcoming for either team, but then each side won a couple. Alan Hawrami agreed an early draw, but Warwickshre had the better of it in the games against Essex: John Sneesby's position against Simon Williams was double edged after very few exchanges. Heather Walker, also faced with a Warwickshire player, played a bad move and lost queen for rook. Other key games were not promising. Lawrence, while never losing, had reached what looked like a fairly sterile queenless position against Alistair Atkinson (Suffolk) and was deep into the endgame before he took advantage. Ezra had drawn the short straw this time, having to play Heather Richards, the Kent board 1. Heather had won a pawn, the queens were off and her knight was definitely better than Ezra's bishop. This game had been written off by no less a person that Jonathan Rogers himself and it was a considerable bonus that Ezra managed to win the pawn back and draw the game.

Whereas Ameet Ghasi won comfortably enough for Warwickshire this time, his board 2 was in for his second ordeal of the afternoon. He had to play Rosalind Keiran (Kent) and went the exchange down. He desperately tried to whip up some threats with a couple of knights and two passed pawns, but Rosalind's king and knight had everything covered. In addition, her rook was on the seventh and she had a passed pawn of her own on the h-file. Once this moved to h7, black could not stop mate next move.

During the last few minutes of play, the results came thick and fast and they were not good for Warwickshire. John Sneesby was the beneficiary of a queen blunder and the Warks board 5 also capitulated, this time to Hertfordshire, who had a splendid second round, picking up 9.5 points to take their total to 14.5 and thereby winning the Minor Counties' Title. Essex, however, scored 10 to give them a 3.5 points margin of victory over the Warwickshire side. Let us hope that we do not have to wait another 39 years for the next one!

Footnote: I had noticed that Chris Waites, one of the Cambridgeshire selectors, was Essex under 18 Champion twice, in 1960-61 and 61-62. It crossed my mind that he might have been a member of the Essex side which won the event in 1962 so I e-mailed him. This is his reply:-

"Peter,

Thanks for your message.  Sorry we didn't give you a harder run for your
money - our only excuse is we were missing six regulars including Adam &
Tom.

I was indeed in the Essex team in 1962 as Board 1 and captain.  We had to
beat strong Surrey & Middlesex teams to qualify and then had a real scrap
with Cheshire in the final.  That Essex team had five players out of 12
from Brentwood School!

Regards,

- Chris."

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