On Saturday, the Wilson’s chess U18 and U13 A teams took the long three hour drive to Birmingham for the 2024 British Team Chess Challenge Final. We were huge favourites in both sections and were very confident about our chances. The time control was 10 minutes plus 2 seconds increment—a short time control that led to some incredible nail-biters in the final rounds!

In round 1 we started very strongly, with a 3.5-0.5 win for the senior team and a 3-1 win for the juniors. In the next round, the juniors had another 3.5-0.5 convincing win, while the seniors won a much closer match. With a score of 2.5/3 on the bottom 3 boards, we had already won the match, but our top board Rahul was unlucky; unfortunately, he had forgotten to press his clock, and his time ran down to 30 seconds until he finally noticed! Sadly, this was not nearly enough time to be able to play accurately in the ensuing time scramble and he lost a close game.

In the third round, Wilson’s dominated, winning 4-0 and 3.5-0.5 in the U18 and U13 sections respectively. By this point, the competition was still very close; the seniors were only one match point above Dulwich College and the juniors were tied with King’s College Wimbledon at 10.5 points apiece, out of a maximum of 12. This led to the climax in round 4; the leading teams in both sections faced each other. The seniors demolished Dulwich 4-0, demonstrating clear dominance in the tournament despite missing a few key players. The juniors fought hard in some very close games, eventually managing to beat King’s 2.5-1.5 and taking the lead.

In the final round, the U13s had a 4-0 clean sweep and the U18s easily won 3-1, meaning both teams were national champions! Special mentions go to Shlok, Antony , Advay and Shivam for winning all their games and credit to the U13 team for not losing a single game in the whole tournament. We were presented trophies by Dr Cooper, the man himself. The seniors were not presented with the shield as we were defending champions and a certain Physics teacher, who shall not be named, unfortunately left the shield at school.

We then had our exhausting drive back to school, and way too many doughnuts were bought at the rest stop on the way by the seniors. We all had a great time playing in this tournament, and hope to win it again next year. And we must thank Mr Stobie-Jones for accompanying us on the long trip to the competition, and for his support of us as a team.

Shivam, Year 11