HUNTER REGION

 (Newcastle PCYC on Sunday 30 March)

 Past weekend junior tournaments in Newcastle have struggled for numbers, but his one had a satisfying 39 competitors -with 27 of them new players (mostly from Primary School teams).So the "warm-up" nature of the event certainly achieved its objective. The top seed, David Behne-Smith, was an uncertain starter as he had to play a water-polo match in the middle of the chess! He raced to a 4/4  outright lead (including a win over second seed Michael McGuirk) then  left for one maybe two rounds. Could anyone overtake him while he was away? And should the organisers give him a bye? Michael gave it a good try, but faltered in the last round, losing to Matthew Koutnik. Matthew  couldn't score enough points either havingearlier been beated by David and also by the tournament's biggest improver, Joseph Stallard. David only missed one round then came back to win the  last three. He was given a half point bye, but was far enough ahead of  the field not to have needed it to win the tournament (but his team  lost the water polo).

 Over 11: David Behne-Smith 7.5/8

 11 years: Jamie Hughes 5.5/8

 10 years: Alex Boyd, Ben Accardi, Penelope Hoey 4.5/8

 9 years: Jonathan Behne-Smith 5/8

 8 years: Ivan Serafim 5.5/8

 7.5 David Behne-Smith

 6 Michael McGuirk, Matthew Koutnik, Joseph Stallard

 5.5 James Hughes, Ivan Serafim

 5 Jonathan Behne-Smith, Karl Buissink, Grant Oliver, Zac Hill

 4.5 Alex Boyd, Daniel Lawson, Oliver Whitton, Sam Brennan,

 Cameron Rivett, Ben Accardi, Henry Farrell, Penelope Hoey

 4 Sarah Dawes, Jack Foulds, Michael Gray

 3.5 Ethan Smith, Jesse Hilder, Donald Stewart, Scott Oliver

 3 Robert Ambrogetti, Aidan Holt, Heathcliff Stubley

 2.5 Jack Marshall, Tionne Hilder

 2 Nicholas Pratt, Rhys Wild, Lauren Mitchell, Joshua Wang

 1.5 Emma Hure

 1 Sachin Kaul

 0.5 Alexander Apostolou

 0 Kedar Abhyankar, Jonathan Pratt