European Youth Championships 2007

13-24 September, Sibenik, Croatia

Round 4

Today saw three brave souls attempt a run, which was quickly down to two in ten minutes and over in twenty. It was quickly followed by empty promises of another jog tomorrow; yeah whatever! A few parents decided to take the bus into town mainly for the purposes of sight-seeing but Nitin took it upon himself to trail the town attempting to get his laptop fixed at dodgy electronics shops without even a Croatian phrase-book. Miraculously, he actually got it done and didn’t get abducted and held for ransom as we originally assumed when he didn’t return on time.

There was a pleasant interlude at lunch time when we threw an impromptu birthday party for Peter Williams Snr (Peter Williams’ dad). The cake was especially delicious and accompanied the incredulous look on Peter’s face extremely well. The party lasted a meagre ten minutes before the players rushed off to prepare for their games.

The games lasted quite a long time with the first results coming in 2 ½ hours. Peter, Roy and Craig drew their games and it was particularly good news because Craig was quite ill and by his own admission Roy was losing. This was followed by even more good news as Amisha drew against the third seed (a WFM). Amisha viewed the draw as bittersweet since she did have a pawn advantage but was unable to convert it due to her opponent’s significant experience.

Fortune continued to favour the English team as Callum and Peter reported wins. Callum was especially fortunate because he managed to capitalise on his opponent’s mistake to convert a drawn position into a win. Anjali drew her game against a higher rated opponent and after a moderately long game Katie reported a win which puts her at 1½. The final game of the day was Subin’s and he was victorious after a tough game which involved a rare, tough line which he had never encountered.

Overall, with a score of 6 ½ out of 9, we really have to say that it was an exceptional day. Congratulations are due to the entire team for their excellent play especially we didn’t lose a single game the whole day!!!

Round 4

Cumulative Results

Round 5 Pairings at 3:00 Tue 18th Sept 2007