Chess players make history

Queen Elizabeth’s enters the record books this term as the first school ever to have two teams in the 30-team national final of the English Schools Chess Championship.

The seeds of this remarkable double success were sown back in the Autumn Term, when Team A took first place in the regional qualifier at St Albans School, with Team B the runners-up.

They then won their coveted places at June’s University of Nottingham final with a string of victories over some familiar but tough rivals in the zonal stages.

Headmaster Neil Enright said: “It’s been an exhilarating year for our chess players, who deserve great praise for playing so well in the regional and zonal rounds, and for putting QE firmly in the spotlight with their double qualification for the national final. What a fantastic achievement! We wish them all well in Nottingham.”

In the zonal stages, QE’s B team went first. After seeing off North London Collegiate School convincingly by 11.5 points to 0.5, they progressed to an away semi-final against Harrow. It was a tougher and tenser challenge, which came down to the last of the six games. This was duly won, giving QE a 4-2 victory.

Merchant Taylors’ had beaten Haberdashers’ in the other semi-final, thus deciding Team B’s opponents in the zonal final. Crucial early points were secured on boards 5 and 6, and although the rest of their points came much later, the B team secured their place in the national final, beating Merchant Taylors’ by a three-point margin, winning 4.5–1.5.

As for the A team, they did things in style, winning all 24 of their individual zonal games! After first wiping out Bishop Douglass School 12-0 and Dame Alice Owen’s 6-0, they took on Haberdashers’ Boys’ the week after the B team’s zonal final triumph. They duly trounced Habs 6-0 in their own zonal final to claim their place at Nottingham among the other zonal final winners.

Teacher in charge of chess Geoff Roberts hailed the boys’ history-making feat. He added: “While the old format may possibly have seen schools with teams in both the main and plate national final competitions, no school has ever had two teams qualify since the English Chess Federation moved to the straightforward 30-team format a decade or so ago,” he said.

The QE teams comprise boys from Year 7 all the way through to Year 13.

Team A
Advait Keerthi Kumar, Year 8
Aayush Dewangan, Year 10
Rohan Katkar, Year 11
Rithwik Gururaj, Year 12
Nishchal Thatte, Year 12
Daiwik Solanki, Year 13

Team B
Gautam Sriram, Year 7
Hubert Bates, Year 8
Djad Ben-Eshak, Year 8
Kian Aggarwal, Year 10
Bharath Jayakumar, Year 10
Akshaj Khandelwal, Year 10
Shlok Parakh, Year 10
Ashwin Ravithas, Year 10