Abingdonian 2018

29 www.abingdon.org.uk Lent Term against an opponent rated 54 points higher on the ECF scale. The whole team earned plaudits for once again being Oxfordshire’s last representative in the tournament and for putting up such stiff resistance in the final to opponents of the very highest calibre. The Oxford and District Chess League, whose matches are scheduled from October through to April and May, was again the main source of competition and development for our best players. This season we played independently as “Abingdon” in Division 4. After 14 matches, we had finished in the top half of the table, having won five, drawn one and lost eight. 13 players were fielded in total. Four turned out for more than half the matches. They were Thitipat Ditrungroj (4/11), mostly on Board 1, Seb Watkins (6/13), mostly on Boards 3 and 4, Jonathan Lee (5/10), mostly on Boards 5 and 6, and Eric Huang (3/8), mostly on Boards 4 to 6. The other contributors were Mr English (4/7), Oliver Yau (4.5/6), Richard Oh (4/6), James Beckinsale (2/5), John Ong (3/3), Dr Jeffreys (0.5/2), Frederick Beneat (0.5/2), Peter Wan (0/1) and Harut Badalyan (0/1). Ross Tselos (1.5/3) continued playing for his old club MCS Blackbirds in Division 3. On 29 November, the annual clock simultaneous display was again conducted by Abingdon’s superb coach Grandmaster Peter Wells. Mr Wells, playing White on the odd-numbered boards, faced 20 opponents from across the year groups. There were 75 minutes on each clock. Last year Mr Wells won 20-0, but this year the School achieved one of its best ever results against him by reducing the deficit to 16-4. The seven talented Lower School players did particularly well, holding on for much longer than in previous years, and the best game prize went to first year Harutyun Badalyan, who managed, in the end, to win his game on time - just! (It was checkmate against him next move.) The other winners were John Ong, again on time, and Dr Burnand. James Beckinsale, taking advantage of a rare blunder, and Jonathan Lee both drew. The full Abingdon team was 1. John Ong, 2. Thitipat Ditrungroj, 3. Richard Oh, 4. Jonathan Lee, 5. Alister Jamieson, 6. Peter Wan, 7. James Beckinsale, 8. Seb Watkins, 9. Luke Ffrench, 10. Ross Tselos, 11. Eric Huang, 12. Alfie Luo, 13. Fran Trotter, 14. William Riddell, 15. Shreyanshu Mohanty, 16. Frederick Beneat, 17. Harutyun Badalyan, 18. Aahaan Sharma (substituting for Zander Wallwork), 19. Mr English and 20. Dr Burnand. House Chess has established itself as part of the Michaelmas Term’s Inter- house competitions, and this year’s tournament, played on 13 December, was one of the best. The star individual performance was by Ross Tselos of Southwell-Sander’s, who won all four of his games on Board 1. But the battle for top spot was really between School House, James’s, Franklin’s and Austin’s, whose teams of three all included at least one School team player and other good players on the lower boards. In the end School House, led by James Beckinsale on Board 1, took the trophy by defeating Southwell-Sander’s in the final round, thus winning in all four rounds. The full results are as follows (teams are listed first by total match points then by game point difference): 1. School (4, +5), 2. James’s (3, +4), 3. Franklin’s (2, +4), 4. Austin’s (2, +3), 5. Southwell-Sander’s (2, 0), 6. Crescent (1.5, -1), 7. O’Doherty’s (1.5 -3), 8. Morgan’s (1.5, -5), 9. Border’s (0.5, -7). The individual knockout tournaments also took place in the Michaelmas Term, though they were not finally concluded until 27 March, when all three finals were played on the same afternoon. Colours were decided randomly and each player had 30 minutes on his clock. In the Upper School tournament, Thitipat Ditrungroj defeated Richard Oh to win the Harding Cup, his unsound Halloween Gambit proving sufficiently scary for an early victory by checkmate. In the Middle School tournament, Ross Tselos demonstrated classical middle- game attacking play to defeat James Beckinsale, winning the Pearce Cup. And in the Lower School tournament, Harutyun Badalyan made better use of his passed pawns to defeat Frederick Beneat, winning the Nightall-Jakubovics Cup. All three winners received book prizes. Just getting to the final was a significant achievement. There were 24, 68 and 36 entrants respectively in the Upper School, Middle School and Lower School tournaments. The main event of the Lent Term was the school stage of the UK Chess Challenge, comprising seven weekly rounds of rapidplay. From 30 Abingdon entrants, there were 14 who earned sufficient points to qualify for the county “Megafinal.” Ross Tselos was School Champion, winning all his games and so achieving a rare maximum score of 21 points. Second was Richard Oh on 19 points, and third was Frederick Beneat on 17 points. Joint fourth on 15 points