Head's Newsletter 1 April 2022

TIFFIN CHESS UPDATE

Tiffin Chess has had an excellent half term. In the Ivan Gromov League, our A and B teams now sit at third and second after 11 rounds and a massive showing in a recent Friday inter - school Blitz tournament helped clinch second in a hotly contested event where the top 5 were separated by just 3 points.

Both the A and B teams made it through to the second knockout stage, beating KCS U13b and Guildford County school respectively. The A ’ s then drew old rivals Hampton in a difficult fixture where they were massive underdogs. Despite Hampton fielding a master on board one and an ex - Tiffinian on board three, Tiffin started well. Samvrit Subin gained an early positional advantage with white against a French however a couple of slow moves brought back equality. As all the games transitioned to the middlegame, Hampton were winning on boards 1, 3 and 6 and later converted on 3 and 6 as Tiffin missed their opponents ’ tactical shots. Despite this, Sagnik Chatterjee on board 2 eased past his higher rated opponent playing possibly the best game we have seen this year to win with white. Then in a bizarre twist, within minutes of each other, both Hampton players on boards 1 and 4 blundered into mating nets in seemingly innocuous positions. Samvrit and Ron Usharovsky both found these to leave the score 3 - 2. Sadly Anixton Linton was unable to overcome his king ’ s weakness and lost on board 5 but this 3 - 3 score meant a victory for Tiffin on boardcount. They then went through to face Eton in the regional finals but the team, hampered by illness lost 2 - 4, only able to win on boards 5 and 6, Anixton and Tong. They can still qualify for the national finals but will have to win the repechage event next term. Sadly the B ’ s were unable to replicate the A ’ s win against Hampton as they faced a very strong RGS Guildford team with the strongest u18 player in the country. However they did stave off the white wash as Alex Wang drew on board 5 and Johan Mathew very comfortably held rook and two vs knight and four against his much higher rated opponent. After a third place finish in the last JTCC qualifier at King ’ s, Tiffin ’ s strong U13 team travelled to Wilson ’ s to try again to qualify for the national finals, this time with a B and C team for company. They began well with a 4 - 0 win over Wilson ’ s D however they stuttered in round 2 as only David Varghese, who finished with 3.5/4, won on board 3 in a 3 - 1 loss to KCS u13 B team. They recovered well though in the final rounds beating KCS u13 A team 2.5 - 1.5 and Eltham A 3.5 - 0.5 to clinch the final spot in the national finals (11/16). Congratulations are in order for all 4 boys, Samvrit Subin, Johan Mathew, David Varghese and Shriyans Muddana for all their hard work this year and let ’ s hope they can go on to even better things in April. The B and C teams also played very well between them beating JAGS A, Reserves, Trinity B and drawing Eltham and Wilson ’ s D to come 8th and 12th in a field of 16. The big brother of the JTCC, the TCC qualifiers were also held this half term, once again at Wilson ’ s. Tiffin ’ s A ’ s began well with 7.5/12 in the first three rounds courtesy of wins against Caterham and Eltham A either side of a close loss to Wilson ’ s B. However they were joined on 7.5 points by 3 other schools with another on 7. With all to play for, Tiffin “ enjoyed ” their usual luck in swiss pairings, drawing the strongest team in the whole competition, Wilson ’ s A. Ron Usharovsky and Isaac Lam then managed to play utterly fantastic games as massive underdogs to force a draw against Wilson ’ s, 2 - 2. At the same time, all other schools drawn on 7.5/12 also happened to draw their games leaving Tiffin tied for second with 4 other schools with the best tiebreak. Qualifying for the national finals is difficult at the best of times but to do so with a team missing two of the top is even more so. Well done to Johan Mathew, who played in the As for both the JTCC and TCC and Anixton Linton for a clutch hold down a rook. The B ’ s managed wins against Wilson ’ s F and Caterham schools to score a credible 10th in the upper section while the C team beat JAGS A, Sutton B and Sutton C to come third in the lower section, just a point (or backrank mate) away from first.