Jonathan Rowson Award

for the Scottish Boy chess player of 2008

December 26, 2008

Daniel Rocks – the 2008 winner

Chess Scotland is pleased to announce that this year's winner of the Jonathan Rowson Award for the Scottish Boy Player of the Year is Daniel Rocks.

Daniel's main achievement as a player during the period of the Award (September 2007-August 2008) was his strong performance at this years Scottish and British Championships.

A couple of years ago Daniels rating was 1644. After having a very good season last year his grade rose to 1890 and with his fantastic summer performance he went above 2000. This demonstrates his application to chess and his desire to improve his ability.

He was also selected to play for Scotland in the Glorney Cup in the summer.

This is remarkable given that Daniel is still in school.

Daniel has been involved in helping our juniors at the training weekends.

Other commended nominees

The judges also gave serious consideration to the claims of another nominee.

Andrew McClement has continued to show great chess potential. He has also had success in running tournaments at the primary school level. He has been actively involved in running the annual British Land Chess Challenge for the past four years in local primary schools and has had participants reaching the Northern Giga Final in Manchester. During the year he made valiant attempts to get the chess club going at his secondary school. He at least succeeded in getting the school to purchase the chess sets.

Andrew occasionally writes an article for the CS website.

If Andrew carries on the way he has, being a commended nominee for two years running, he must be in with a real chance of winning.

Thank you

In the third year of this Award, the judges would like to extend special thanks to everyone who took time to nominate a player and provide a few thoughtful paragraphs on how each nominee met the playing performance, organisational achievement and wider profile Award criteria.

Duncan Grassie, Graeme Kafka and IM Stephen Mannion

December 2008

2006 winner

2007 winner