It all started with the mega-finals in York back in June. This is effectively the 1st qualifier and open to all players and there are several of these nationwide. I comfortably won the U14s section in this qualifier. There were 3 qualifying places in this event for the next stage called the giga-finals.

The giga-finals had an incredibly difficult qualifying criteria for the tera-finals. There were 4 events, each with only 2 qualifying places for boys and 1 for girls. I did not qualify from the Southern giga-final at Harrow, but I managed to qualify from the online giga-final. 2 days of intense play amongst 111 of the best U14s in the country resulted in a finish of 2nd placed boy. 

From the moment the draw for the tera-final matches was released, I set about working assiduously on my preparation, looking for surprising lines and variations in the openings I was most likely to get, studying each 1 in great depth. 

My 1st match was against Oxford's Kenneth Hobson, the reigning UK Schools and British Champion in this age group. I was happy to take a draw from this match after out preparing him in the opening. Then, I went to take 3 wins, a draw against Denis Dupuis, the 2019 UK Schools champion and a close game against Rohan Pal with many twists and turns which resulted in an unfortunate loss for me. I was delighted with the standard of my play on this day. 

I woke up hopeful of continuing my previous day's good form but felt a little fatigued from the outset after Saturday's efforts. I didn't play quite as accurately, achieving 2 wins and 3 defeats, albeit 2 of them against the eventual winner, Levon Dmitrios Zakarian, from Oxford and 3rd placed Isaac Lam from London.  I was better in the opening against Levon but got into time trouble and was forced into a dubious sacrifice that didn't quite work. Against Isaac, I was unable to recover from one inaccuracy in the endgame after a Petrov Defense. It was an honour to collect my personally engraved medal & prize money in the Grand Hall as shown below.

From left to right: Alex Royle, Rohan Pal, Raman Vashisht-Pigem, Aryan Munshi, Mohit Kamal Karangad, Lindsay Pyun, Olga Latypova, Kandara Acharya, Dimitrios Levon Zakarian, Isaac Lam, Denis Dupuis & Kenneth Hobson.