SPTW Secondary Squad at Golders Green Rapidplay

19 secondary school girls attended the first live SPTW event as they participated in the Golders Green Rapidplay tournament in North London.

The event has been running successfully by International organiser, Adam Raoof, for over 30 years. It provides a fantastic opportunity for tournament chess on a monthly basis- even SPTW Founder, IM Lorin D’Costa, has played in the event since he was 10 years old!

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of law firm Davis Woolfe, girls had their entry paid for as well as offering free coaching and analysis of games by Lorin. The girls readily took this up throughout the day as they were keen to show their winning games, or analyse their lost games.

In the Under 1450 rated section, Reya Karpe and Kayla Davis scored 4.5 points from their 6 games to come 3rd equal. Both won prizes.

7 year old Amelie Bryant came 5th with 4 points (we had some Primary School girls attend too!)

In the tough Open tournament, won by a Russian Grandmaster, top SPTW scorers were Roxolana Chaban, Alisha Vyas and Kristina Solovieva with 3.5 points from their 6 games. A host of other SPTW girls scored 3 points also.

It was fantastic to see so many girls playing chess, something SPTW is very keen to encourage!

Picture attached shows Georgia Headlong (top left) and Alisha Vyas (right) fighting against their opponents on the top boards in round 2.

SPTW looks forward to the next Secondary Girls Squad event, which will be announced soon.