Saturday 22 April 2023
U9 EPSCA Final in Nottingham 2023
Essex Under 9 EPSCA 2023
After finishing 2nd at the qualifying round in the South East zone, the team travelled to Nottingham for the Finals and came 6th place.
In the Finals, two players in the squad were not able to attend which made the reserve useful in the matches.
Round 1 started so well with Aditya, Ethan, Grace and Oliver all creating a material advantage to win their games. Hantin wonderfully created a Kingside attack and hunted the opponent’s King down. Ashwin A managed to have a superior centre then created an open f file which strengthened the superiority he had. Hugo tried to create the principle of two weaknesses but opponent was able to resource the defence and the game ended with a draw.
There were high hopes in the second round, with Ashwin G. creating a Queen + Bishop battery to deliver the checkmate, Jason converted the exchange advantage of a Rook for a Knight of the opponent into a full point and Grace’s generating 2 passed pawns which made the other side to defend, panic and blundered which added another win for Essex. Though we’ve lost on some of the boards, Ethan and Harry managed to draw the games from a losing positions which shows the resilience of the players and how much they wanted to be in the team.
In the final round, we have seen both Harry and James almost a symmetrical delivery of a mate using a lawnmower (Q+R) against the opponents King. Dylan and Ethan created a ferocious attack against their opponents castled King using development advantage and a discovered attack to get the wins. I will finished the report by Mary’s extraordinary honesty and great display of sportsmanship who was winning with a Rook but was unfortunate to have mistakenly touch a piece that will become decisive in the game. She bravely admitted the mistake with tears, played on and made it difficult for her opponent to have the win. Such act was hailed by the Arbiter himself.
Fantastic day with the Essex U9 players and wonderful support from the parents.
Best Wishes,
Michael Catabay
Essex Under 9 Team Manager
For more photos of the 2023 U9 Team click here