English Junior Rapidplay, 3 November 2007

The English Junior Rapidplay was held at the International Students House in Central London and was organised by the London Chess Centre on behalf of the ECF. The tournament was held in memory of Abba Rivlin a strong chess player from Leeds who competed in the Hastings Challengers. His family’s generous contribution enabled the event to take place.

There were some outstanding performances, most notably from Matthew Wadsworth, an U-8 who scored 5/6 and Helen Mazalon who very nearly upset one of the leading U-12s in the last round and could have won the U-10 title. The Breindel brothers from Radlett were both prize winners, with Jake winning the U-10.

The overall winner and English Rapidplay champion was Raushan Khamroev a new arrival from Uzbekistan who scored 5.5/6. Having started with five straight wins, he had a superior tie-break to Akash Jain and James Adair. Raushan’s crucial victory was over Yang Fan Zhou as Black in a Scandinavian, as he coolly defended a difficult position and then took his chance with a tactical shot that won the exchange.

Nearly 150 players took part and thanks to all who volunteered in setting out the pieces and the chairs and special thanks to arbiter Adam Raoof who kept the tournament running to time and to Claire Summerscale for her support from the event’s inception until the very last chess set was packed up.

Open
1st = Raushan Khamroev, Akash Jain, James Adair 5.5/6 Khamroev winner on tie-break

U16
1st = Raushan Khamroev, James Adair 5.5/6 Khamroev winner on tie-break
3rd = Elliot Aukland 5

U14
1st Akash Jain 5.5
2nd Dashiell Shaw 4.5
3rd = Patrick Stevens, Tibor Jones, Samuel Waller, Lloyd Clarke 4

U13
1st Gordon Scott 5
2nd = Yang-Fan Zhou, Alexander Hardwick, Aashna Mahajan, Saravanan Sathyanandha 4

U12
1st = Marcus Harvey, Brandon Clark 5
3rd Frank Sabin 4.5

U11
1st Radha Jain 4
2nd = Peter Batchelor, Adam Taylor, Joseph Levene, Philip Knott, Nicholas Clanchy, Mihir Matvani 3.5

U10
1st Jake Breindel 3.5/6
2nd = Tibo Rushbrooke Jonathan Pein, Helen Mazalon, Marcus Rose, George Chantry, Henry Mitchell 3

U9
1st = Peter Andreev, Ravi Haria, David Redman 4 Peter Andreev winner on tie break

U8
1st Matthew Wadsworth 5/6
2nd Rohan Shiatis 4
3rd = James Colebourn, Carl Breindel 3