Abingdonian 2017

65 www.abingdon.org.uk Summer Term rounds of rapidplay. From 30 Abingdon entrants, there were 18 who earned sufficient points to qualify for the county “Megafinal.” Ray Ren was School Champion, scoring 19 of the 21 available points. Second was Joseph Truran on 18 points. And joint third were Jeff Abraham, Richard Oh and Alister Jamieson on 17 points. Qualifying on 16 points were Thitipat Ditrungroj, Jonathan C. H. Lee and Saxon Supple. Qualifying on 15 points were Jerry Yang, Sebastian Watkins, Lawrence Putt, Peter Wan and Louis Brosnan. Finally, qualifying as best in their age category were lower sixth former John Ong, second year Matthew Fowler and first years Fran Trotter, William Riddell and Alfred Luo. On Saturday 18 February, eight of Abingdon’s younger players travelled to St Joseph’s Catholic College, Swindon to play in the Wiltshire Junior Chess Congress. In the Intermediates’ section, Dashiell Hathaway was Abingdon’s best performer, finishing joint fourth on 4/6. In the Beginners’ section, Abingdon’s three entrants Matty Ball, Shreyanshu Mohanty and Mark Taylor all tied for third place on 4/6, winning medals. The other participants in the Intermediates’ section were Sebastian Watkins (3/6), Fran Trotter (3/6), Alister Jamieson (2.5/6) and Louis Trotter (1/6). There were no trophies this year but plenty of high quality chess training. On Monday 1 May, fourteen Abingdon players travelled to The Downs School, Compton, for the county stage of the UK Chess Challenge. The tournament had recently been taken over from Mike Basman, who favoured the old county boundaries, by former British Ladies Champion Sarah Hegarty, who did not. And the new rules did not make it entirely clear which “Megafinal” Abingdon should attend. In the end, we were given the choice and opted to carry on playing at the Berkshire event. And a good decision it was too. After six rounds of rapidplay, five Abingdon players had qualified for the Southern “Gigafinal” in July, either by winning their age category or by scoring more than 3 points. Fran Trotter (4/6) and Alfie Luo (3.5/6) qualified from the combined U12 to U13 section, Sebastian Watkins (3.5) qualified from the particularly tough U14 section, and in the combined U15 to U18 section, Abingdon players won two trophies. Jerry Yang (3/6) was the best U18 and Richard Oh (5/6) was the best U16, playing far above his current rapidplay grade. The other Abingdon contenders were Alister Jamieson (3/6), Jonathan C. H. Lee (3/6), John Ong (3/6), Will Riddell (2.5/6), Saxon Supple (2.5/6), Louis Brosnan (2/6), Matthew Fowler (2/6), Lawrence Putt (1.5/6) and Peter Wan (1.5/6). Given that some of Abingdon’s best players were either absent recovering from illness or preparing for public examinations, this was a particularly fine showing. The last match in the Oxford and District Chess League occurred unusually late in the year, on 16 May. With our top players busy revising, Mr English had to stand in on Board 1 and was duly smashed by Banbury’s Carl Portman, who incidentally played this year for Britain’s NATO team in Budapest. The other “City 4” players fared no better in what was our third 6-0 defeat. It is just as well that next season we will be playing in the division below, and can look forward to building up our chess in a wholehearted effort to win that division. It has been satisfying, along the way, to beat MCS’s team on aggregate, and very pleasing that Ray Ren, for the second year in succession, won the Lester Millin Memorial Trophy for the junior with the best game points percentage in any division of the League. Fourteen players were fielded in total. Six turned out for more than half the matches. Ray Ren (6.5/8), on Board 1, Jerry Yang (4.5/11), mostly on Boards 1 and 2, Mr English (2.5/13), mostly on Boards 1 to 3, Thitipat Ditrungroj (4/9), mostly on Boards 3 and 4, Jonathan C. H. Lee (2.5/10), mostly on Boards 4 and 5, and Seb Watkins (3/8), mostly on Boards 4 to 6. The other contributors were Alister Jamieson (0.5/5), John Ong (0/5), Tong Tong Sukamongkol (0/5), Dr Jeffreys (1/2), Richard Oh (0/2), Luke Ffrench (0/2), Peter Wan (0.5/1) and Alexander Pennington (0/1). Next season our affiliation with Oxford City Chess Club will be brought to an amicable end and we will play independently as “Abingdon.” Ray Ren has been a credit to Chess Club ever since he first started playing in the First Year – without a grade! He leaves to study mechanical engineering at the University of Bath with a grade of 165 and rising, and is a most deserving recipient of the King Trophy. I am very grateful for his exemplary contribution over the years, and also for the splendid contribution of Abingdon’s other star leavers Joseph Truran, Jeff Abraham and Jerry Yang. Daniel Savage deserves a special mention too. If it had not been for his continuing health problems, he would surely have played again for the first team in the National Schools’ Championship. We have missed him at Chess Club and wish him well. Finally, thanks to our superb coaching team of Grandmaster Peter Wells, Mr Poon, Dr Burnand and Dr Jeffreys. Andrew English