The Delancey Schools Chess Challenge may be the biggest children’s chess event in the world. It is played in three stages, 1) Megafinals 2) Gigafinals and 3) Terrafinals.
Chester Chess Club was represented by 16 children of whom 10 qualified for the Gigafinals. There were some very good, and some surprising results, and a few disappointments.
By far the best result was Sam Burchett’s perfect score of 6/6, to become Supremo in the under 11 section beating Ben Wood-Finden into 3rd place on 4.5/6 in the final round. Mike Hughes also qualified from this section with 3.5/6
Supremo Sam presented with his prize by Graham Bromley:
In the difficult 12 to under 18 section we saw three fine performances from Zach Bragg 12, Milan Kustos 13 and Abdelrahman (Boudy) Mahmoud 14, all qualifying and finishing on 3.5/6. A little disappointing were Jack Yang and Nethuli Saram who scored 3/6 and 2/6 respectively. Jack, not to be denied, played in the Cheadle Hulme event a few days later and scored a terrific 5/6 to become the Supremo of his section. Efe Kitis who didn’t play in the Chester event also qualified with 4/6 finishing in 2nd place at Cheadle.
In the under 10 section Harry Rafferty scored 4.5/6 and qualified comfortably in third place, but the sensation of the section was Mira Kustos who booked her place in the next round with 3.5/6.
There were more surprises in the under 7 and 8 section where George Turner scored 4/6 for 2nd place and Yehia Mahmoud also qualified with 3.5/6.
The results of all our players are as follows:
Under 7 & 8
George Turner 4 2nd place Q
Yehia Mahmoud 3.5 Q
Under 10
Harry Rafferty 4.5 3rd place Q
Mira Kustos 3.5 Q
Under 11
Sam Burchett 6/6 Supremo Q
Ben Woodfinden 4.5 3rd place Q
Mike Hughes 3.5 Q
Ram Kavadapu 0 WD Rd 1 –
Under 12 – 18
Zach Bragg 3.5 Q
Milan Kustos 3.5 Q
A. Mahmoud 3.5 Q
Jack Yang 3 –
Nethuli Saram 2 –
James Frost 1 –
Jack Carroll 1 WD Rd 4 –
Surya Kanan 0 WD Rd 3 –
Thanks to Jixin, Graham, Paul and Keith for helping to organise the event.