The final round of the Crowborough Junior Chess Championship was an exciting end of season tribute to all our players. Henry our defending champion needed to win his final game and hope that long term leader Lucy slipped up and lost her final game.
	Both players had tough games against Reece and Theo who as expected did not make it easy for the leading pair. Reece despite some friendly moans to Gill about his massive upfloat played superbly against Henry, liquidating a good middlegame into a winning endgame and when Henry’s clock fell Reece was about to capture Henry’s only passed pawn and leave himeself with an easy Bishop and 3 pawns vs 4 pawns ending.
As this was happening Theo had Lucy’s king in an almost impossilble to escape mating net but with only 2 minutes left on her clock she used her time sensibly and found a way out by running her king away from danger. When Theo’s checks ran out Lucy had only 16 seconds left on her clock but impressed watching Jonathan with a 4 move forced checkmate that resembled the puzzles we had been practicing earlier.
	So Lucy takes the 1st place trophy and will have her name engraved on the Regency Chess presentation board while Henry finished in 2nd place with Liam playing a smooth game to win his final match take’s home the 3rd place trophy. Special mention goes to new player Isabella who won the medal for 4th place.
Thanks to everyone for participating and making a success out of another enjoyable year at the junior chess club and myself, Jonathan, Trevor and Gill hope to see you all back again on Friday 8th September 2017. PS thank you to Kate for bringing in the homebaked chess board cake that I think was enjoyed by all – certainly there was none left at the end of the evening.  And good luck to everyone playing in the Gigafinal this weekend.