Highcliffe School’s great achievement in winning the 2018 Inter Schools competition and become Champions of local schools’ chess for the first time.
Bournemouth Grammar School (BGS) put up a brave fight, but were ultimately beaten by a very strong Highcliffe Schools Team who have worked so hard to achieve this award. The key Players from Highcliffe – James Forster (169), Adam Ursell (125) and Thomas Trach (est 120) all won their crucial games to set the foundation to beating BGS. The level of play was as expected extremely high and Highcliffe ended up worthy winners. Highcliffe brought 10 players in all, and mixed and matched the remaining 3 boards in all 3 rounds to maximise their strength and versatility.
Conversely BGS suffered with a limited team and unfortunately defaulted Board 2 in the 1st round which Highcliffe won 5-1 and this was a blow they could not recover from. However, team spirit returned in the 2nd round when they recovered to draw 3-3. They needed a reverse of the 1-5 score to force a play-off however, this was just a step to far and went on to draw the 3rd round 3-3, a valiant effort given all circumstances.
Congratulations to all players that took part in the Final and Lytchett Minster and Poole Grammar schools both of which will be back next year.
Special congratulations to Bryan Lose the teacher from Highcliffe who has put so much effort in promoting chess at the school and finally, sincere thanks to our Guest Speaker Councillor Nigel Hedges who came and helped with the Prizegiving.
With thanks to Eric Sachs who wrote this report
Result detail below:-
| FINAL | ||||
| 01/05/2018 | ||||
| VENUE ELSTEAD HOTEL | ||||
| Round 1 | Bournemouth GS | Highcliffe Comprehensive | ||
| 1 | Sunny Yang | 0 | 1 | James Forster |
| 2 | default | 0 | 1 | Adam Ursell |
| 3 | J.J. Weeks | 0 | 1 | Thomas Trach |
| 4 | Ryam Clarke | 1 | 0 | Annelie Davis |
| 5 | Olli Hiocco | 0 | 1 | Killian Lucas |
| 6 | Scott Lambert | 0 | 1 | Theo Fry |
| result | result | 1 | 5 | |
| Round 2 | Highcliffe Comprehensive | Bournemouth GS | ||
| 1 | James Forster | 1 | 0 | J.J. Weeks |
| 2 | Adam Ursell | 1 | 0 | Ciaran Southey |
| 3 | Thomas Trach | 0 | 1 | Sunny Yang |
| 4 | Annelie Davis | 0 | 1 | Ryan Clarke |
| 5 | Mickey Pritchard | 0 | 1 | Ollie Hiocco |
| 6 | Barnaby Codd | 1 | 0 | Scott Lambert |
| result | result | 3 | 3 | |
| Bournemouth GS | Highcliffe Comprensive | |||
| 1 | Ciaran Southey | 0 | 1 | James Forster |
| 2 | Sunny Yang | 0 | 1 | Adam Ursell |
| 3 | Ryan Clarke | 0 | 1 | Thomas Trach |
| 4 | J.J. Weeks | 1 | 0 | Killian Lucas |
| 5 | Scott Lambert | 1 | 0 | Annelie Davis |
| 6 | Olli Hiocco | 1 | 0 | Theo Fry |
| result | result | 3 | 3 | |
| Overall Score | ||||
| Winners | HIGHCLIFFE | |||
| Runner -Up | BOURNEMOUTH GRAMMAR | |||
| Highcliffe winners with a board count of 11/7 | ||||
