European Youth Chess Championships, Prague, 15-26 August 2012
30 English boys and girls, aged from 8 all the way to 18 made the trip to Prague for the annual European Youth Championships. This was held at the ‘Top Hotel’ in the south east of the city.
Being picked to represent your country is a big honour in any sport, so those who have had the chance to go to this event (and the world youth championships, also held annually) are very lucky! It also is a reward for the hard work these young players have put into travelling up and down the country, honing their chess skills in various tournaments, as well as the training they have been doing with their coaches.
The main difference in this tournament to playing domestically is that every single player is the strongest the respective countries have sent, meaning absolutely no easy games. It can be very tough mentally losing to a player from Russia, only in the very next round to get the champion from Hungary! All the English players acquitted themselves well, and put their best efforts in which they can all be proud of.
Tournament details can be found at: www.chess-results.com/tnr79011.aspx?art=1&rd=9&lan=1&flag=30
Or the official website: www.eycc2012.eu/
The players that represented England were:
Joshua Altman- Under 8 boys
Leo Sanitt
Aditya Verma
Zheming Zhang- Under 10 Boys
Laura Davidson- Under 10 girls
Meytal Cohen
Girinath Haridas-Under 12 Boys
Arul Gupta
Yang-Jian Zhou
Dion Huang
Akshaya Kalaiyalahan-Under 12 girls
Eva Ressel
Beatrice Steele
Ravi Haria-Under 14 boys
Tarun Malhotra
Conor Murphy
Adam C Taylor
Ananth Balaji
Leo Tsoi
Rohan Shiatis
Martin Oliver-Under 16 boys
Patrick Smith
Amy Hoare-Under 16 girls
Chantelle Foster
Katherine Shepherd
Yang-Fan Zhou-Under 18 boys
Sam Franklin
James Foster
Gordon Scott
Adrian Archer-Lock
Although there were many exceptional performances, the biggest performance was 8 year old Joshua Altman, of North London who secured 3rd place on tie break and therefore the Bronze Medal in the boys under 8 competition with his score of 7/9. It has been a long time since England won a medal in the World or European Youth championships, and Joshua follows the great English talents David Howell, Gawain Jones, Luke McShane, Nick Pert (all of whom went on to become Grandmasters and represent England) and Jovanka Houska (who became International Master and board 1 for the England womens team) in winning a medal at these prestigious events.
Well done also to Aditya Verma, who came 8th in the same tournament with his score of 6.5/9 and also to Akshaya Kalaiyalahan (girls under 12) and IM Yang-Fan Zhou (boys under 18) who achieved good top 20 positions in their tournaments.