Northern Gigafinal 2017

Last weekend brought the Northern Gigafinal of the Delancey UK Chess Challenge. Gigafinals are for those who scored highly at the regional Megafinals.

The Wright Robinson College in Manchester was once again the venue.

The last time I was in Manchester it was to see these promising youngsters, back in December...

Last weekend I was there again to see lots more promising youngsters, including a plethora of stars from CSC Teesside, spread across the many sections from Under-7s upwards.

I was delighted to be reunited with two of my top CSC friends - David Hardy and Glenn Trueman - on the CSC stall, where we all spread the word about the CSC while trying to avoid defeat against a veritable avalanche of eager young chess challengers.

There's no doubt about it - Gigafinals are very tough events and it is not at all easy to score even a single point. However, our Teesside children really got stuck in and everyone did themselves proud.

The full results can be accessed here (click on the relevant part of the 'Tournament Selection' to see the results according to section) but here are the collated Teesside scores.

Under-7 Boys

1.5/6: Zachary Green, Jack Wilkinson

0/6: Oscar Watson


Under-7 Girls

3/6: Natasha Pointon 


Under-8 Boys

3.5/6: Aryan Nalawade

2.5/6: Aditya Paul

1.5/6: Seth Holland, James Thompson

0/6: Kenneth Bezrucko


Under-8 Girls

3/6: Isobel McGlade, Lily Tattersall

2.5/6: Emily Rowe-Simpson

2/6: Farrell Scott


Under-9 Boys

3/6: Samuel Bolton

2/6: Ben Meager

1.5/6: Ajay Selvan

1/6: Cartlon Nevison


Under-9 Girls

3.5/6: Freya Costello

1/6: Evie Veasey


Under-10 Boys

3/6: Ellis Anderson, Henry Parker

2/6: Matthew Finn



Under-10 Girls

2.5/6: Eleanor Lamb

2/6: Eleanor Whitwell

1.5/6: Evie Harbisher, Molly Bryce


Under-11 Boys

3/6: Joshua Nichol


Under-11 Girls

2/6: Keya Shah, Leia McCusker


Under-12 Boys

3.5/6: Ihsaan Mahmood

3/6: Benjy Millward


Under-14 Boys

1/6: Matthew Bradwell


There are clearly some outstanding scores there and, more importanly, excellent experience was gained by all of our players. Watch out when you next have to play against them!

All of our CSC Teesside schools enter the UK Chess Challenge every year. Any schools wishing to join the fun should keep an eye on the UKCC website. Entries usually open in the Autumn term.

Following a period of great uncertainty, the UKCC is now in very safe hands after being taken over by Sarah and Alex Longson.

Sarah and Alex have lots of exciting plans to further develop the UKCC and we are looking forward to seeing the plans come to fruition.