This has been another excellent year for the Academy, both as a friendly but competitive chess club, and through team and individual performances by the players. Numbers have risen steadily with over 50 registrations this season, and the standard of play has increased dramatically in the three years since the Academy was formed.
The Academy combines coaching and play at its Friday evening meetings. We run two groups; Ravenclaw (advanced) and Gryffindor (intermediate) with championships each term. Guy Parsons (autumn), and Thomas Sha (winter and spring) won the Ravenclaw championships, with Matthew Guo (autumn), Ziyu Ong (winter) and Jesse Prince/Juncheng Lin (spring, shared) taking the Ravenclaw
honours.
The Academy once again entered two teams in the Cambridgeshire Schools League, which we won last year. This season new rules on eligibility weakened our teams and we narrowly lost a close battle against the Perse School, which was galling as several of their leading players are Academy members!
An Academy team was entered in the East Anglian Team Championships. Playing in the Under 7000 tournament the Lions came second. More significantly the Lions also played in division 2 of the local adult chess league, winning it with eleven wins, two draws and one defeat. Congratulations to our squad of Thomas Sha,
Antonio Di Fruscia, Lee Kanchi, Kayal Vijay and Neel Mishra.
The inaugural East Anglian Junior County Championships were held over 20 boards in October. The Cambridgeshire team included 9 Academy players and ran out comfortable winners. Thomas Sha is now a regular (adult) County first-team player and Antonio Di Fruscia, Lee Kanchi and Guy Parsons have represented the second team.
Over the past year players have achieved many individual triumphs. Kayal Vijay was crowned British Girls Under 8 champion at the British Chess Championships last August, going on to represent England in the world junior championships in Kazakhstan and scoring an impressive 5.5/11 over two weeks. This spring she surpassed even that by winning the European Girls’ Under 9 championship in Croatia.
October saw the final stages of the Delancey Schools Challenge, which for most players is held over four weekends with the qualifiers from each stage whittled down to an all-play-all tournament. Antonio Di Fruscia came third nationally in the Under 10 section with Minh Nguyen second in the Under 8s. Minh was to score two more really impressive results either side of Christmas against adult opposition: second in the Cambridgeshire County Championship and winner of the East Anglian Under 1600 championship.
Lee Kanchi showed his ability in weekend tournaments over the season, winning the Cambridgeshire FIDE Congress and Bury St Edmunds Congress Under 1500 tournaments in the autumn. He then went on to compete in the Under 1750 tournament at the St Albans Congress, winning the prizes for best Hertfordshire player and best junior player, thereby collecting two trophies!
In February the Academy staged its own junior tournament, open to other schools cross the County and beyond. Thomas Sha won the Open tournament and Ofri Pilowsky-Bankirer the Under 1000 competition. More success followed in April in the local qualifying event for the national junior championships, with Elliot Lingard winning the Under 12 section and Ofri the Under 10 event.
The achievements listed above cannot capture all the successes (apologies for the inevitable omissions), but we have tried to reflect the range and diversity of the Academy’s activities, and our approach of gradually introducing our stronger players to tournaments and adult chess when they are ready.
Finally our thanks to Sawston Village College and the staff who have been very supportive and to the coaches who organise the chess activities and encourage the students. But to achieve what our juniors have done over the past year demands dedication and hard work on their part, and considerable parental support. A real team effort, so thanks to all. We hope to see you all again in September.
Paul Kemp
Paul McMahon