UK Chess Challenge Megafinal, 2014

On Saturday the 17th of May, a squad of seven junior players travelled from Hebden Bridge to Sheffield for the South and West Yorkshire megafinal (area final) of the 2014 UK Chess Challenge.

The Hebden Bridge youngsters have always been quite successful at this stage of this national competition. However, this year, with several players new to large competitions, expectations were not quite so high. Despite the lack of experience the young players were very enthusiastic, and they achieved some very creditable results.

The most successful were Luca Curry and Martha Leggett, who each came second in the very competitive Under-11s sections for boys and girls respectively, while Gwilym Hughes came third in the Under-9 boys. The two youngest entrants, Amelie Thomson and Joshua Davenport-Hardy, also  managed good scores for players in their first competition.

The individual results were: Toby Dodd (Hebden Bridge, Over-11 Boys) 1/6, Luca Curry (Hebden Bridge, U-11 boys) 5/6. Martha Leggett (Hebden Bridge, U-11 girls) 3/6, Anna Nevison (All Saints, U-11 girls) 3/6; Gwilym Hughes (Hebden Bridge, U-9 boys) 3/6, Amelie Thomson (Hebden Royd, U-8 girls) 2 ½ /6, Joshua Davenport-Hardy (Hebden Bridge, U-7 boys) 2/6.

Junior’s Club Organiser John Kerrane (above) commented,

I was very pleased with the attitude overall. There was some disappointment that more of the youngsters didn’t achieve the necessary 4 points to progress to the next round, but I’m sure they will do better next time, now they know what to expect.