Chess team win Nationals for the first time

The semi-finals and final of the English Schools’ National Chess championships were held over the 2nd and 3rd of July in the lovely grounds of Uppingham College in Rutland.

HABS Chess A team (picture above L to R)
Ravi Haria, Roman Mitra, Lawrence Lee, Vincent Lee, David Xu and Tarun Malhotra with Mr Barnes

Our semi-final opponents were Hampton School, both teams very strong and well matched. The result was never in doubt, however, as Habs played fantastically well and crushed the opposition 5.5 – 0.5. The final beckoned against Reading, another very strong team who won the event last year. We were slightly outgraded across the boards so on paper Reading were slight favourites but having beaten them earlier in the season we had the psychological advantge and having played so well the previous day in the semi we were in a good frame of mind.

There is always the danger of peaking too early and an early loss from Vincent on board 5 put the pressure on the rest of the team. The match was due to last up to 4 hours and after 90 minutes, needing at least 3 points for victory things were looking grim: David was losing on board 6, Lawrence was (slightly) favourite on board 4 and boards 2 and 3 with Tarun and Roman were drawish. Ravi on board 1 was struggling with a queen against a rook, knight and past pawns.

Mr Barnes was resigning himself to yet another second place but he shouldn’t have doubted this team! Tarun’s and David’s games went as predicted with a draw and a loss , Lawrence manged to convert his advantage to a win and Ravi managed to get a draw with perpetual check.

It all came down to Roman’s game, with a win needed to give us a 3-3 draw but overall victory on board count. With both players under time pressure, a large crowd gathered round and the tension in the air palpable Roman held himself together brilliantly and managed a king side pawn push with aplomb and deservedly won. This was his 15th victory in 15 games this season (his last for Habs – he is moving on to MTs next year for his A Levels) and it was a fitting climax  to a great season and a great day’s chess.

This was HABS’ first victory in the 57 years of this prestigious tournament after coming so close in recent times. This was the sixth time we had reached the finals in Mr Barnes’ tenure and it has been an emotional roller coaster for him following the brilliances and blunders of the HABS boys over the last 15 years. The 3340th game he watched over made it all worthwhile!!

HABS would like to thank IM Lorin De’Costa for his coaching of the A and B teams this year.