With a much visited holiday home in Cornwall, Henry and Xavier were both deemed eligible to enter last weekend’s Cornwall Junior Chess Championships, despite their Sussex affiliation. The county has good pedigree (England’s highest FIDE ranked international is a Cornishman), and the current crop of Cornish juniors include some nationally ranked stars, so the event was to be no pushover.
Henry (U9) entered the U10 section and Xavier the U12 section.
Henry’s campaign started with easy wins in the first two rounds, but hit traffic in the third with a long drawn out contest, just winning by adjudication after time ran out. In the fourth round versus the top Cornish U10 girl, he hit trouble again with a bungled defence of his queenside. Things were looking dicey as his opponent’s points advantage stacked up, but then Henry found a very clever tactic and sacrificed his Knight to win his opponent’s Queen. This levelled material for the two players, and Henry went on to win the match. After winning an exciting 5th round game against the number one seed, he went on to complete the whitewash with six wins out of six games to take the U10 title.
Xavier had a tough draw in the U12s. In round three he met the Cornish number 1 – a very strong player ranked considerably higher than Xav in the national rankings. A tense game ended in a draw, with neither player wishing to take any risks in the time limited match. Both players went on to win their remaining matches and so shared the U12 title.
