Abingdonian 2018

30 The Abingdonian were Thitipat Ditrungroj, Seb Watkins, Jonathan Lee, Eric Huang, and Dashiell Hathaway. Qualifying as best in their age categories were the Upper Sixth players John Ong and Sean Kao on 14 points and the second year players Alfie Luo, Fran Trotter, William Riddell and Shreyanshu Mohanty on 13 points. On 25 March, 15 members of Chess Club travelled to Crowthorne to take part in the Wellington College Junior Chess Tournament and Training Day, organised by Grandmaster Nick Pert. This was in place of the usual half-term trip to the Wiltshire Junior Chess Congress in Swindon, and it proved a worthwhile new departure. Nine boys entered the tough U18 section and five entered the Improvers section, which is for players with little or no experience of chess tournaments. At the end of six testing rounds of rapidplay (20 minutes on each clock plus a three second increment) Abingdon had won three trophies and two medals. In the U18 section, Ross Tselos (143) won a trophy for second place, finishing on 5/6 with an excellent grading performance of 167. Frederick Beneat (3.5/6) and Jonathan Lee (2.5/6) also performed at a level above their current rapidplay grades. In the Improvers section, Max Woodthorpe Browne (5/6) won a trophy for second place and Zander Wallwork (5/6) won a trophy for fourth place. Medals were awarded to Shreyanshu Mohanty (4.5/6) and Charlie Leyland (4/6) for strong performances. Also participating were, in the U18 section, Seb Watkins, Eric Huang, Alfie Luo, Fran Trotter, William Riddell and Harutyun Badalyan, and, in the Improvers section, Mark Taylor and Aahaan Sharma. On 21 May, 12 boys travelled to St Gabriel’s School, Newbury, to play in the West Berkshire “Megafinal”, a county stage of the UK Chess Challenge. After six rounds of rapidplay, with 20 minutes on each clock plus a ten second increment, Abingdon had won five trophies as well as three second-place medals. Thitipat Ditrungroj (5/6) won the U17 trophy and headed the combined U14-U18 section. James Ng (1/6), benefitting from the total absence of GCSE pupils, won the U16 trophy. Seb Watkins (3.5/6) finished ahead of Dashiell Hathaway (2/6) to win the U15 trophy, and Oliver Yau (4.5/6) finished ahead of Eric Huang (3.5/6) to win the U14 trophy. In the combined U12-U13 section, Harut Badalyan (4/6) finished ahead of Frederick Beneat (3/6) to win the U12 trophy. Abingdon’s four U13s were William Riddell (2/6), Alfie Luo (1.5/6), Fran Trotter (1.5/6) and Shreyanshu Mohanty (1/6). Section winners and players on more than three points qualified for the Southern “Gigafinal” in July. Ross Tselos had already qualified for the Southern Gigafinal by winning the U14 trophy at the Oxfordshire Megafinal in April, heading the combined U14-U18 section at that event. The recipient of this year’s King Trophy, presented at Prize Giving by Dr King himself, is John Ong. Not only has John been a keen supporter of Chess Club, bolstering our ODCL team on numerous occasions, but he has also become a notably successful practitioner of the quicker form of the game, achieving a rapidplay grade of 125 and helping Crescent last year secure victory in the House Chess tournament with a perfect score of 4/4. He is going on to study medicine at Birmingham University. In Michaelmas Term 2018, after an absence of 11 years, Chess Club will return permanently to Big School, to rooms B207 and B208, moving up from Mercers’ Court with Mr English, Mr Poon and the rest of the Mathematics Department. Thanks to all the coaches and for everyone’s patience with the temporary arrangements in the second half of the Summer Term. I hope the advent of wobble chess made up for the giant chess set’s being in storage. Andrew English