Briant Poulter League – Clash of Two Chess Titans (Raghav Vaidya – Wilson’s School)

The Briant Poulter League is an annual chess league which has the strongest schools in the Surrey area. Each week, Wilson’s chess teams play one game against another school team – this happens for approximately two school terms. Each of these are team games, meaning every team has 6 players and the school with the highest score at the end of the match, wins.

Over the course of the league, typically the schools with the strongest teams are placed towards the top of the table – with the difference between first and second place not being the number of matches won, but rather the number of individual games won in a team. This often leads to nail-biting final matches, just like our last match against our long-time rivals KCS.

Before KCS arrived, the Wilson’s A team knew that as they were one match point ahead of us, even if we won, we would need to do so convincingly to cross them in game points. The Wilson’s B team had a similar feeling, though being first on game points, knowing that we needed to win against King’s B team to ensure we remain the top B team in the 1st  division.

While we waited for them to arrive, everyone was getting ready for the match by preparing opening lines against potential players, solving puzzles and playing practice games against one another.

When they arrived the games almost immediately started, with the coin toss being done where both Wilsons’ teams won and opted to play White on odds.

Scoresheets were exchanged. Hands were shaken. The clocks were started.

The match had begun.

Almost 15 minutes through, a faint click of a clock button and the tapping of pieces on Board 3 of the B team, told everyone that the first game had finished. The Wilson’s player exploited his opponent’s blunder and converted a winning position. After that, most of the players in the B team had comfortable positions and slowly but surely they were winning one game at a time.

However, all were still playing in the A team, until after one hour, when the first game finished in our favour. Shortly after that the Board 6 drew, followed by Board 1 also drawing. In the meantime, one player had lost in the B team, but a couple of wins meant that we were still up. After a while, the A team’s Board 3 and 6 had also won – it was looking good for us.

The last games were one in the B team who only needed a draw to win the match and one in the A team, which was a battle of time. Both players had less than a minute on their clocks and while the opposition’s player seemed to have a more comfortable position, the Wilson’s player found the correct defence right on time and after a series of rapidly played moves, both players agreed for a draw. A minute later, the last player in the B team won his game.

The B team secured the place of highest B team in the 1st division but while the A team won 4.5 – 1.5, it unfortunately was one point away on game points to win the league. However, they realised that only giving half a point to a strong team like King’s was very difficult, so were pleased with the win.

At the end of the match everyone had enjoyed themselves, and knew that every year, the Wilson’s Chess Team have gotten stronger, so we kept our hopes high for the next season.