The College team was led by Dr David Follows and eight of their strongest players. The chess room was prepared with all boards having professional chess timers to give each pair of opponents two games of fifteen minutes.

The highly experienced College team was greeted by our Chess Captain, Jun W and their Captain was the highly rated player, Ben Aubury.

Our team was:

1. Jun W
2. Giovanni S
3. Monty W
4. Marc W
5. Hector W
6. Zachary S
7. Daniel D
8. Tristan Z

Pilgrims’ won the toss and selected White for the first game, everyone shook hands and the timers were started with all now deep in concentration: this was surely going to be a tough match!

Roughly ten minutes elapsed and there was the first result on board 7 when Daniel checkmated his opponent. This was then followed by Tristan checkmating his opponent. Hector played excellently and was unlucky to draw his first game after having a winning position. Zachary also achieved a draw.

So, we were 3/4 up after four results and looking good. After round 1 was completed the score was Pilgrims' 3 to 5 from the College who had dominated the top four boards.

After a short break we continued with round 2 and Zachary, Daniel and Tristan all won their games giving as a total of 6 points. Despite fierce resistance from Jun, Giovanni, Monty, Marc and Hector the College players (who were considerably older and more experienced) prevailed making the final score Winchester College 10, Pilgrims’ 6.

This was a super result showing that our team is a force to be reckoned with!

My thanks go to Paul Bryant for inviting the College and to Julie Allen for taking excellent photographs.

The team looks forward to future matches against other schools.
Dr. John Upham, Chess Tutor