Saturday 2 March 2024

Yarm Preparatory School Delancey UK Schools' Chess Challenge Report 2024


Yesterday brought our latest major chess event, in the form of the initial stage of the Delancey UK Chess Challenge at Yarm Preparatory School.

67 eager children entered the tournament, which featured all year groups from Year 2 to Year 6. We used the highly impressive new dining hall for the first time.

The Year 2s were playing in their first chess event and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. After seven tough rounds, Arya Jafari emerged as the section winner with a very impressive score of 21/21. 

The new Year 2 Girls' Champion is Shanaya Chauhan, who won all of her games apart from the one she lost to Arya.


Jayden Wang also scored 21/21 to win the Year 3 section but the battle for the Girls' title was much closer and ended in a four-way tie between Edie Thompson, Zoyaa Soni, Karunya Garg and Rosie Lowe.

In keeping with our usually policy, we didn't apply tie-breakers or play-offs (which is how other parts of the country like to resolve tied places) but instead we awarded all four girls with a title and a trophy.

We saw another 21/21 in the Year 4 section, which brought tournament success to Dara Jafari - and not for the first time.

Scarlett Yang is the new Year 4 Girls' Champion.


The Year 5 section was the only one without a 21/21 score-line. Rory Fitzgerald lost his first game but then showed remarkable resilience and consistency to win his next six games, all against dangerous opponents, to win the section.

Manha Abdullah also recovered well from some early setbacks to finish strongly and become the new Year 5 Girls' Champion.

Miles Page was in full control in the Year 6 section and won all of his games to comfortably take the title.

The road to the Girls' title proved to be a much tougher battle and it ended in a dramatic three-way tie between Anika Sunkavalli, Lolwa Soliman and Kaira Nalawade.


The next stage of the UKCC is the Teesside Megafinal, which will once again be held at the magnificent Princess Alexandra Auditorium, on Sunday 5 May.

The Megafinal is open to ALL of our players, but please book early if you would to participate, as we always sell out of all 150 places and we cannot create any more once they have gone.

Please sign up here.

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