Report on the National Final 29 and 30 June 2023
This year’s finals of the National School Chess Championships were held at the University of Nottingham on 29 and 30 June. The event took place in the spacious Studio 7 of their King Meadow Park Campus, which was originally built as a TV studio. The 5 round Swiss tournament had a record 26 teams playing. The top 3 teams had average ratings of over 2000, including last year’s champions Westminster School.
Round 1 went largely with seeding, with the majority of matches being one sided. There were, however, also a couple of drawn matches and the fourth seeds Hampton School only just beat QE Barnet, 3½ – 2½. The top 3 seeds again won convincingly in Round 2. They were joined on maximum points by Hampton School who again won 3½ – 2½.
Round 3 was played late on Thursday 29th and saw King’s College School, Wimbledon defeat Westminster 4 – 2 whilst Hampton beat Wilson’s School by 3½ – 2½.
The fourth round on Friday morning saw the crucial match of the tournament between Hampton and KCS Wimbledon. As in the previous rounds Hampton again prevailed 3½ – 2½. Other leading winners in this round were Wilson’s, Westminster, Exeter Maths School and QE Barnet.
So in the final round Hampton only needed a draw against Westminster to win the championship which is exactly what they did. Wilson’s beat Exeter Maths School to come second (on tie break) and be awarded the Richard Haddrell trophy (foot of this article) whilst QE Barnet who defeated KCS Wimbledon won the plate (awarded to the highest place team who lost their first match).
Congratulations to Hampton School (above) on winning the ECF National School Chess Championships.
There were lots of other interesting matches. You can find all the results at https://chess-results.com/tnr786558.aspx?lan=1. An added bonus at this tournament was the use of live board for all 78 games. These games can be found at the following locations:
https://view.livechesscloud.com/#79837208-64fe-435d-bb95-df6cec725a54
https://lichess.org/broadcast/ecf-national-schools-chess-championship-final-2023/round-1/hXiYLwuw
https://www.chess.com/events/2023-ecf-national-schools-championship-final
The ECF wish to thank a wonderful team of arbiters: Hambel Willow, Richard Buxton, Julian Clissold and Réjean Dupuis. They also thank the University of Nottingham for a wonderful venue and Winchester College for their sponsorship, which meant each school attending was presented with an inscribed chess clock.
Follow the Final online
DGT Livechess iCloud – https://view.livechesscloud.com/#79837208-64fe-435d-bb95-df6cec725a54
Lichess.org – https://lichess.org/broadcast/ecf-national-schools-chess-championship-final-2023/round-1/hXiYLwuw
Chess.com – https://www.chess.com/events/2023-ecf-national-schools-championship-final
Chess24 – to follow
Chess-results – https://chess-results.com/tnr786558.aspx?lan=1
Time and date
The tournament will be a five round Team Swiss System tournament, with two match points (MP) for a won match, one MP for a drawn match and 0 MP for a lost match. The time limit for each game will be all moves in 50 minutes, plus 10 seconds per move.
The schedule will be —
Round 1 – Thursday 29th June 13.00
Round 2 – Thursday 29th June 15.30
Round 3 – Thursday 29th June 18.00
Round 4 – Friday 30th June 09.00
Round 5 – Friday 30th June 11.30
Prizegiving – Friday 30th June 13.40
Teams qualified for the Finals
26 teams qualified, 21 from the regions, plus five from the repechages – see https://www.englishchess.org.uk/NSCC/u19-regional-2022-23/
Prizes
Teams will be placed in order of their match points. The tie-breaks will be (a) Extended Sonneborn-Berger for Teams (EMGSB) (b) Game points (c) Sum of opponents match points.
1st – Championship trophy
2nd – Richard Haddrell trophy
Plate – Plate trophy (awarded to the highest-ranked team who lost in the first round)
Extra space
Additional waiting areas for teams and players in between rounds will be available, but teams will not have dedicated waiting rooms. There is a large amount of indoor communal waiting space close to the playing hall.
FIDE World School Championships
The ECF will offer the winning school a place at the inaugural FIDE World Schools Championship in Kazakhstan from August 3rd to 8th 2023. For more details see https://www.fide.com/news/2382