You can't win anything with kids

 You may remember earlier posts of games against Oliver Howell and Aditya Gupta, detailing the Sutton GS team in the National Schools Championship. Unfortunately, we lost to Wilson's in the zone semi-final, so entered the Last Chance Saloon. We did the same last year and missed a qualifying spot by half a game-point, winning our last match 4-2 when 4.5-1.5 was required. This year though, our team was even older - average age 17 years 8 months - and as expected we gave away a big Age Handicap in all 5 rounds of this one-day tournament, playing 25-minute games.

 I was board 3 in a team of rapid grades 205, 138, 134, 117, 107, 118. We were quite nervous of our prospects at first due to the absence of any player not in the 6th-form, but despite a few nervous moments, the most pressing contributed by our captain (that would be me!) in the end we progressed with some comfort, grabbing a spot for the upper tier as a bonus, and underlying the dominance of Surrey schools for chess, as all 4 qualifiers were from our county.

 As usual for rapid tournaments, it isn't practical for me to thoroughly annotate every game, so I shall restrict myself to basic commentary. In round 1 we played Dame Alice Owen's School, almost as old as us. I played an ungraded player, Garo Heath, who has an unpublished slowplay grade of 126. Like the rest of his team, he knew a good deal of opening theory, but once that was exhausted, a chess-player was needed rather than a book, and so I quickly gained an overwhelming advantage:

 Round 2 finally saw us beat Wilson's! Admittedly, it was their C-team, but that team beat our B-team 5-1 and 4-2 earlier this season, so complacency would have been unwise. We needed 4.5-1.5, and got 6-0 with a very clean performance. My game against the 66-graded Owen Wright saw me a piece up out of the opening and there was no coming back for him after that.

After round 3, the wheels were threatening to come off after just one loss, so close was the competition. We drew 3-3 (WWLLLW) with Hampton but finally had our Age Handicap catch up with us. Yet it was the only tough match our Briant Poulter League rivals had as they waltzed their way to the other Championship space. I played a 144, Michael Pettit, and threw away a probable draw with an admittedly deep tactical mistake.

However the penultimate round set things good again, as we eviscerated Bristol GS by 6-0, easily surpassing our 4.5-1.5 target. I had a nice win in another Scotch Game, against a 90-graded player, Harris Bright, but I feel I might have had a crushing middlegame attack that I abandoned for an easy ending.

So we came to the last match against King's School Grantham in 2nd place, sitting on a Championship qualifying place. 4.5-1.5 was our favourite target score throughout the event, and we needed it once again here. The games were close, but our experience told in the end - except for my board, where a loss of concentration meant some nervy moments for my team-mates. I outplayed a 92 (James Kelly) easily in a Sicilian Najdorf, only to leave a piece en prise and dent my memory of what was otherwise a very good day.

 Well, it could happen to anyone is all I can say for the last game. But if I of all people prevented us getting to the National stages, goodness only knows how long the depression would have lasted! A good day for the Briant Poulter League (ironically however, of the 'big four', only Wilson's failed to get a team into the upper tier!) My team-mates also played well, and without being relentlessly hard on myself for one game, for most of the day I didn't too badly either. But typical that I had to finish my junior playing career with that game...

 This is not the place for yet another rant at the pointlessness of an Age Handicap Rule (it is secondary schools that are ceasing to enter, not primary/prep) but, as I alluded to in the post title, in this instance our relatively huge levels of experience stood us in good stead (even if half of our team, your author included, only started playing in Y11.) It gets to the point where the strongest team available to a captain isn't the best one to use, which is surely wrong - yet I chose to be obstinate in team composition (we were so old, we may as well have gone for the sledgehammer-for-nut approach), went for grading points over months, and was vindicated.

 In the Last 16 of the Championship, we play Eltham College, a very young team. Due to Age Handicap, a close match is in prospect, which ought to take place over the next few weeks. In the meantime, there is always another league match on the horizon! The next is on Thursday.