Suffolk Chess

The Bury Knights Junior Chess Club entertained 24 members of the Norwich Junior Chess Club today, at Horringer Court Middle School, the 'home' of the Bury Knights.

This is the Norwich team, together with coach Stephen Orton hiding at the rear and parent Liam Dolder (right):

The Norwich players were, on average, considerably older that Bury's, with many of them of secondary school age.   They also had strength in depth, whilst most of Bury's lower boards were very young and inexperienced.   Three of Bury Knights' bottom boards (Tania Roy, Dylan Rajayogan and Harry Butterworth) were only six years old.

The final score was 62 - 34 to Norwich.   However, over the top 15 boards, Bury would have won narrowly by 30½ to 29½!   Bury only scored 3½ points out of a possible 36 on the lower nine boards, but won 8 - 4 on the top six boards.

Bury players scoring the maximum 4 points were Alan John (Board 1), Jaden Jermy (Board 3), Tom Roy (Board 4) and Mario Saenz de Villaverde (Board 7).   Adam John (Board 3) scored 3 points, whilst his sister Amy, still only 7, scored 2½ points.

Two Bury members scored 2 points: Aaron Saenz de Villaverde (Board 8) and Aidan Myerscough (Board 12),

The top six boards played two games each with 40 minutes on the clocks, whilst the remaining 18 boards played four games each with 20 minutes on the clocks.   The top six boards scored double (a win = 2 points etc).

Norwich JCC have invited the Bury Knights to a return (revenge?) match on a Saturday in the summer term.