On Wednesday 18 March the Sevenoaks School Chess A and B team travelled to Wilson’s School for a schools competition. The A team was represented by (in board order): 1 Shyam Kalairajah, 2 Jackson Wen, 3 Jessica Wen, 4 Rayan Melwani, and the B team was represented by 1 Lawrence Lam, 2 Oge Flagg-Igbo, 3 Christiane Gontarek, 4 Diego del Ser. The games were ten minutes with a two-second increment, thus everyone needed to play quickly as well as accurately. Seventeen other school teams were present, the strongest competitors being Trinity A team and Wilson’s A team.
The Sevenoaks A team won 14 games out of a total of 16, beating the favourites, Trinity A team, 3-1, beating the third seeded team Wilson’s A 3-1 and beating Glyn School and Wallington School 4-0. Shyam Kalairajah and Rayan Melwani won all their games (scoring 4/4), and Jackson and Jessica Wen won three games (scoring 3/4). The A team finished first in the competition.
The B team scored 8.5/16 to be placed 11th. They were in third place prior to the final round of the competition, but were unlucky to then be paired against the Trinity A team. The B team welcomed a new member, Diego del Ser, who performed well scoring 2/4. Lawrence played his first game as B team board 1/4 and played well, scoring 2/4. Oge Flagg-Igbo scored 3/4 and Christiane, the youngest player on Sevenoaks School’s teams, scored 1.5/4.
Both teams’ performances were encouraging and the expansion of the team to younger players bodes well for future progress of the team.
Shyam Kalairajah
