2017 HMC Championships

Our Yarm chess teams were in action once again at the 2017 HMC Championships at QEGS. 

We had one team in the Under-9 section (Seth Holland, Aryan Nalawade, Aditya Paul and Frankie Parker) and two in the Under-11s (Yusuf Syed, Ajay Selvan, Henry Parker and Oliver Cochrane in the A team; Oscar Thomas, Sai Sidaginamale, Eleanor Lamb and Grace Crawford in the B team) and we were hoping to repeat our success from last year, when we became the Under-11 champions.

All three teams started in excellent fashion with 4-0 victories. However, this made the second round more difficult for all concerned, which saw our three teams pitched against tough opponents from RGS and QEGS. The Under-11 teams lost heavily but the Under-9s battled their way to a very fine 2-2 draw with RGS B.

The Under-9s continued to play very well and scored another three big wins from their last four matches, losing only to RGS A along the way. They beat both QEGS A and QEGS B by terrific scores of 3-1.

Captain Seth and Frankie ended up scoring a very creditable 3/6 each. Aryan won four games and drew one but Aditya was the team's top scorer with a superb 5/6.

The team held a very fine third place, just behind RGS A and RGS B. If our Under-9s keep on improving as they have been doing then they will make a formidable Under-11 team at next year's HMC event.

Yarm A vs. Yarm B

Meanwhile, our Under-11 teams met each other in the third round and the B team made life difficult for the A team for a while, before the latter team eventually emerged as winners, to the tune of 3-1. The A team then won two of their last three matches, but couldn't prevent defeat against a very strong RGS B in the penultimate round. Nevertheless, a smashing 4-0 victory over Ackworth in the final round saw them finish well and register a good fourth place, just one point behind QEGS A and one and a half points behind RGS B. Very close indeed!

Captain Yusuf, Henry and Oliver all scored 4/6 and Ajay, the only Year 5 player in the team, scored 3/6.

The B team continued to battle hard, winning one, drawing one and losing one of their the last three rounds. Captain Oscar won two games from six, Eleanor and Grace both scored 3/6 and Sai was the team's top scorer with four and a half out of six. The B team finished just two and a half points behind the A team, which was a great achievement.

We all had a great day and I'm sure all of our players gained a lot of very valuable experience, especially when they found themselves up against stronger opposition.


Congratulations to the champions - RGS - and thank you to QEGS for proving themselves to be perfect hosts yet again.