11 year old Connor Woods from St Edward's Primary school (Airdrie) is the Scottish Primary Individual Champion for 2004, winning with a 100% score.

Here's the Champion'as thoughts on the event followed by a report by arbiter Alex McFarlane.

The top 32 Primary chess players were invited to Pitlochry to take part in the Primary Invitational on the 5th of June 2004. This was the third time I had been invited to play and I always enjoy the chess and the chance to have some fun with my friends as it is a stayover weekend.

I was sharing a room with my friend from school David Marshall and David Nisbet from East Kilbride who I knew from playing in other tournaments with. Our room was right next door to the playing hall on the first floor.

We played our first three games on the Saturday afternoon and I managed to win them all but I knew I would have a difficult draw in the next round. On Saturday evening we went gorgewalking which was brill and I caught a frog, it was really cold and we all got soaked, I gave Owen Hughes a loan of my shoes as his were soaked, and I had to walk everywhere in my socks. It was a great laugh.

The next morning I was black against Jonathan Wright and I felt I played well to win, my next game against Jonathan Edwards was even tougher which I sweated over a lot to finally win. Mr. McFarlane told me after this game that I had won the title and it felt great. I was really disappointed last year losing in the last round and it meant a lot to finally win. My last round was against Ruaridh Milne and I think because I felt the pressure was off I played well to win all my games.

Thanks to Mr and Mrs Mathie and Mr McFarlane we had a great time and as a round-up of the tournament all I can say is that it was BRILLIANT !!!!!!!!


CONNOR

Report by Alex McFarlane

The 2004 Primary Individual Championship took place over the weekend of 5th-6th June at the Atholl Centre, Pitlochry. As always the entry was limited to 32 invited players.
Amongst the pre-tournament favourites were Jonathan Edwards, Ruairidh Milne and Connor Woods.
The early rounds produced a few shocks such as Robert Montgomery defeating David Nisbet in round 1 and Andrew Davie overcoming Craig Petrie. By Saturday evening the lead was shared by Connor Woods and Jonathan Wright on 3/3 with Jonathan Edwards, Jamie Hookham and Scott Thomson a half point behind.

And so to the evening events ….
The 32 were divided into 3 groups who took part in a range of outdoor pursuits, orienteering, gorge walking and abseiling, all under the supervision of qualified instructors. All 32 survived their descent of cliffs, their run through the forest or their submersion in a highland stream.

In round 4 Jonathan Wright tried all he knew against Connor Woods but the experience of the Hamilton player ensured his victory leaving Connor in sole lead. Connor clinched the title with his round 5 victory over Jonathan Edwards and completed the tournament on 100%.
Round 6 saw the battle for the minor places intensify. The top pairings were Milne v C Woods, Wright v Hookham, R Montgomery v Morrow, MacQueen v Thomson and Edwards v Blair. After the smoke had cleared the final places were:
Primary Individual Champion - Connor Woods (St Edwards) 6/6
2nd Jonathan Wright (Robert Gordon’s) 5/6; 3rd Ruairidh Milne (Robert Gordon’s) (on tie break) 4; 4th Jonathan Edwards (George Watson’s) 4;
5th= Jamie Hookham, Robert Montgomery, Kristian Roberts,Stuart MacQueen, Andrew Rutherford 4;
10th= Scott Thomson, Angus Taylor, David Marshall, Owen Hughes, Andrew Morrow 3½;
15th= Benjamin Filmer, Connor Blair, Craig Petrie, Gordon Buchan, Fraser McKay, Joe Pedrosa 3;
21st= Cameron MacLean, Lewis Montgomery, Michael Miller 2½;
24th= Andrew Davie, Calum Lee, Barnaby Leach, Marc Woods, David Nisbet 2;
29th= Simon Kermack, Stuart Montgomery, David Martin, Robert Lawless 1.