12 of our chess players went to St. Catherine’s, Bramley on Sunday 26 January to take part in the Southern semi-final of the National Girls’ Chess Championships. There was a record entry of 360 players, the largest ever chess tournament for girls in Britain!

The Abbey entered 4 teams from the Senior School in the U19 section, which had 46 teams from all over the South of England.
They played three, one hour matches in the morning and two more in the afternoon. At the end of a long day it was announced that the A team had finished in 4th place and had qualified for the National Finals for the second year in a row, which is a great achievement.

They were presented with medals by Agnieszka Milewska, the Director of Women’s Chess in England.

The B, C and D teams also did well winning 3 out of their 5 matches, especially considering they were often playing girls who were older than them.

All our teams played the best chess players from the South of England and had good wins against teams from Henrietta Barnet School, Hampstead, North London Collegiate, St. Paul’s, King Edward VI, Edgbaston, Stroud High, Notre Dame, Cobham, Nonsuch High, Sutton, Demark Road Grammar, Gloucester, Borlase Grammar, Marlow and the A team drew with Westminster School.

Congratulations to all the players:
A team: Shree, Csilla, Radha
B team: Eshitha, Sameera, Anoushka
C team: Ana, Aanya, Chloe
D team: Oishani, Livia, Margaret

Also, good luck to the A team in the National Finals which will take place at the beginning of the Easter holiday over two days.

Mr Hills