The three sets of playoffs have now concluded in the Premiership, the Major and the First Class, so the final promotees are now known for next season.

In the First Class, there were some complications due to the significant jump in strength level between many of those in this year’s First Class and Major. As a result, not many of those finishing in the playoff places (or even below them) expressed an interest in promotion to the Major next season. Pranaav Prasanna Venkatesh, who finished third, certainly did, and Tournament Secretary Graham Heath was keen to see some form of game played. A willing semi-final opponent was eventually found in eighth-place finisher, Purya Mirilavasani, who Pranaav beat to proceed to the final. The other semi-final, between Freddy Powell and Ro Ford, has yet to be played, but both have declined promotion if they achieve it, so this fixture may be allowed to lapse.

We can therefore congratulate Pranaav on promotion to the Major next season, alongside automatic promotees Seth Marks and George Jowett.

In the Major semi-finals, the in-form Tony Leong defeated Martin Cockerill, while Kingsley Tan dispatched Paul Greenway, completing a 2-0 defeat of adults by juniors! In the final, Kingsley’s extra 100 points of ELO rating made the difference in a long game, to finally end Tony’s run of ten classical games unbeaten!

Kingsley will therefore be joining Lee Whitford-Stark and fellow Calday pupil Sam Bakhshian in the Premiership next season.

The first Premiership semi-final, between Brian Wiggett and Chinenye Basil-Nwachuku, was drawn, which wasn’t a surprise considering the pair were split by only a single ELO rating point! In the replay with reverse colours, Chinenye prevailed, but then had to wait patiently to find out the identity of his opponent in the final. This was because Joe Ledgerton, having missed out on automatic promotion by only one point, had to schedule his playoff appearances in between GCSE exams. When he had a slot available, he was able to defeat Steve Simm in the semi-final and then dispatched Chinenye in the final.

He adds to his victory in the Open Major cup and secures his place in the top flight next season, alongside other stellar juniors Thomas Moran and Terrence Jiang.

Particular commiserations to Chinenye, who finds himself the playoff runner-up for the second season in a row!