Ian Eustis writes:
This year the tournament was meant to be held in France, but Covid 19 soon put paid to that.
Eventually an offer to hold the tournament on line from Alex Holowczak, the Director of Junior Chess for England, was accepted.
Paradoxically, France then declined to participate. (They had rearranged their junior championships to coincide with the date of the tournament). Belgium accepted an invitation to enter and so we had a five round all play all, as has become normal in recent years. Being on line necessitated slight changes to the rules of the competition, one of which was that all teams were allowed up to two playing reserves.
Being a total stranger to online chess, as I am, I asked Nicholas Evans to act as team manager for all four of our teams and he did an excellent job, greatly encouraging and enthusing all the players, enabling them to enjoy the tournament.
He writes, “This year, the strength of the tournament was especially high. England sent their best team in years and with players being in the comfort of their own home, they seemed to play their best.”
England thus won three sections from the Netherlands, with points to spare and Ireland were third in three sections.
Our three oldest teams finished fifth out of six, although the Gilbert and Robinson teams were only half a point behind fourth place. All the games were hard fought and this was a fair result, as all the other teams, apart from Scotland, clearly outranked us on individual rating. The Glorney team beat Scotland. The Gilbert team beat Netherlands (who won the section!), Ireland and Scotland and the Robinson team beat Belgium and Scotland. All the other matches were lost. Our best individual performance was by Ellison Smith, who was necessarily on a low board because of his FIDE rating. He scored an heroic 4.5 points out of five.
The final positions were as follows:
Glorney (5 boards)
| England | 20 | Netherlands | 18 | Ireland | 12 | ||
| Belgium | 11 | Wales | 9 | Scotland | 5 |
Gilbert (3 boards)
| Netherlands | 9.5 | England | 8.5 | Ireland | 8 | ||
| Belgium | 7.5 | Wales | 7 | Scotland | 4.5 |
Robinson (6 boards)
| England | 22.5 | Netherlands | 18.5 | Belgium | 15.5 | ||
| Ireland | 14 | Wales | 13.5 | Scotland | 6 |
Stokes (6 boards)
| England | 24.5 | Netherlands | 19.5 | Ireland | 17 | ||
| Belgium | 14 | Scotland | 7.5 | Wales | 6.5 |
The final scores of our players were :
Glorney
| Played | Points | Played | Points | |||
| Chirag Guha | 5 | 1 | Callum Smith | 3 | 2.5 | |
| Hugo Fowler | 5 | 2 | Madeleine Smith | 2 | 0 | |
| Duncan MacDonald | 4 | 2.5 | Joel Chung | 2 | 0 | |
| Merlin Davies | 4 | 1 |
Gilbert
| Played | Points | |
| Shayanna Sivarajasingam | 5 | 2.5 |
| Venetia Sivarajasingam | 5 | 1 |
| Susanna Fraser | 5 | 3.5 |
Robinson
| Played | Points | Played | Points | |||
| Ethan Chung | 5 | 2 | Bence Szakmany | 5 | 3 | |
| Daniel Chung | 4 | 1 | Ellison Smith | 5 | 4.5 | |
| Hiya Ray | 5 | 2 | Yuxuan Wu | 3 | 0.5 | |
| Milo Davies | 3 | 0.5 |
Stokes
| Played | Points | Played | Points | |||
| Tom Davies | 5 | 0 | Ben jaberansari | 5 | 2 | |
| Sridatta Dantu | 5 | 2 | Osian Jessop | 3 | 0.5 | |
| Ashika Shahameeran | 5 | 1 | Khushi Bagga | 3 | 0 | |
| Govind Anandkumar | 4 | 1 |
