European Youth Team Chess Championship 2015

[Mick Norris]

12 SLO Slovenia - England ENG 14
Markoja, Boris - Horton, Andrew P 0.5 - 0.5
Markoja, Sebastijan - Haria, Ravi
Skuhala, Jernej - Wadsworth, Matthew J
Dobrovoljc, Vid - Claridge-Hansen, William 0 - 1

live games

[JustinHorton]

Well they seem to have won that one.

[LawrenceCooper]

Well they seem to have won that one.

Yes, a good team performance with William winning on board 4 and three hard fought draws elsewhere.

[Jim Wadsworth]

Round 5: Slovenia 1,5 - 2,5 England

1 SLO Markoja, Boris (2346) ½ - ½ Horton, Andrew P ENG 1
2 ENG Haria, Ravi ½ - ½ Markoja, Sebastijan (2276)
3 SLO Skuhala, Jernej (2163) ½ - ½ Wadsworth, Matthew J ENG 3
4 ENG Claridge-Hansen, William ENG 1- 0 Dobrovoljc, Vid (2057)

Second match victory, blitz tonight to celebrate. Well done boys.

Round 6: what will likely be the toughest match so far against 5th seeds Poland 1.

[Roger Lancaster]

"Postby Alan Walton » Tue Jul 14, 2015 8:30 pm

"I was under the impression that the team was arrange by the individuals themselves, and official backing was given after the case"

Odd if true - can anyone shed light on this?

[Roger de Coverly]

Odd if true - can anyone shed light on this?

The players and perhaps more importantly the parents, I would suspect are well acquainted through the 4NCL and elsewhere. If entry to the tournament has to be through the ECF, then it was a question of getting the ECF to approve the entry. In terms of local amateur chess, the boards 3 and 4 faced one another on top board in this season's Chiltern county competition. Results so far have proved the hypothesis that the team is stronger than their bottom seeding would suggest.

[Jim Wadsworth]

The players and perhaps more importantly the parents, I would suspect are well acquainted through the 4NCL and elsewhere. If entry to the tournament has to be through the ECF, then it was a question of getting the ECF to approve the entry.

The boys all know each other well and enjoy working together. They have been playing against each other for years (e.g. the first graded game between Ravi and Matthew was in December 2005 when they were 6 and 5 years old respectively; the most recent was earlier this month http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/ches ... nship.html); and in various combinations they have all been members of the same England teams at events such as World Youth or European Youth. When we (parents) proposed that we organise a team for this particular event, the ECF was happy to endorse.

[LawrenceCooper]

Round 5: Slovenia 1,5 - 2,5 England

1 SLO Markoja, Boris (2346) ½ - ½ Horton, Andrew P ENG 1
2 ENG Haria, Ravi ½ - ½ Markoja, Sebastijan (2276)
3 SLO Skuhala, Jernej (2163) ½ - ½ Wadsworth, Matthew J ENG 3
4 ENG Claridge-Hansen, William ENG 1- 0 Dobrovoljc, Vid (2057)

Second match victory, blitz tonight to celebrate. Well done boys.

Round 6: what will likely be the toughest match so far against 5th seeds Poland 1.

http://eytcc2015.eu/en/live-open-match-5/

[NickFaulks]

They all seem to be having a go today. Top board just winning?

[LawrenceCooper]

They all seem to be having a go today. Top board just winning?

An agonising 1.5-2.5 defeat which could so easily have been 2.5-1.5

[Jim Wadsworth]

Round 6 England 1.5 - Poland 1 2.5

1 ENG Horton, Andrew P 0.5 - 0.5 Jarmula, Lukasz (2395) POL 1
2 POL Gajek, Radoslaw (2391) 1 - 0 Haria, Ravi
3 ENG Wadsworth, Matthew J 0 - 1 Eggink, Ryszard (2316)
4 POL Gumularz, Szymon (2284) 0 - 1 Claridge-Hansen, William

Great win for Will on board 4, congrats to him (on track to win about 80 rating points over the tournament). The team is off for pizza belatedly to celebrate yesterday's win....today was oh so close against a strong team...

Final round tomorrow - good luck for that lads

[NickFaulks]

Whatever happens tomorrow, any questions about whether it was worth going are well and truly answered.

[Jim Wadsworth]

Whatever happens tomorrow, any questions about whether it was worth going are well and truly answered.

The team (and their parents) never had any such questions....notwithstanding today's tough result the guys are enjoying themselves and are working well together.

[David Robertson]

Yes, indeed. I was 'worried' earlier on. And I've followed most rounds since. As has been said, the squad is better, or has played much better than 14th seed. That alone is good. Today could, indeed, have been a rout - in our favour! But Andy's attack was humanly hard to manage, even if Engine says +zillions; and Ravi will be disappointed.

So, well done, the guys. And well done, the parents

[Roger Lancaster]

Thanks, Roger and Jim, for the clarification earlier. I was curious simply to ascertain the ECF reaction to an independent initiative of this type. The parents and players deserve credit for putting it together (as others have observed, the results speak for themselves) and the ECF, about whom I'm not invariably complimentary, also deserve credit for endorsing it.