Chess

State Final Results

Middle School:

An exciting day’s play at the Chess Middle Years State Finals last week. With more schools prepared to participate online this year compared to last year, the competition was significantly more challenging than last year with some of the local chess heavy weights (Mazenod and Glen Waverley) returning to the competition.

With 15 schools and 115 students participating in the finals this year, we fluctuated between 3rd and 5th throughout the day in a very tight battle. Our team finished strong and managed to secure 3rd place overall by the smallest of margins from 4th placed Mentone Grammar. This means that our team at Nationals will be 8 players strong compared to teams further down the list who will only have four players. This is also the 10th consecutive year that Huntingtower will be represented at Nationals.

Our best players on the day were:

Rey D (equal 3rd)                7.5 (7 wins and a draw) out of a possible 9 points / games

Benny C (13th)                     6 points

Kallol S (23rd)                       6 points

Smaran S (25th)                   6 points

We had three girls in our team of 10 players:

Ria M (40th)                           5 points

Amanda L (52nd)                  5 points

Prisha R (56th)                       4.5 points

Senior School:

It was a very pleasant surprise when the Senior School team hit top spot after 6 rounds in this 9-round event. We eventually finished 2nd out of 20 teams (151 students) with many of our players punching well above their weight. 

Unlike other schools, our team does not have any individual stars; what got us into 2nd place was our overall team effort. Seven of our players scored 5/9 or better and this is what separated us from the third-placed team who finished on the same points as us. It was so close that the tournament organisers had to go back seven players on countback to separate us from them and our whole team effort paid dividends.

George P (School Chess Captain) was a standout. George was only able to join the team after completion of the second round of games and went on to win 6 of his remaining 7 games. Our other captain (Mary H) was the only girl in our team and finished the day with a very respectable 4 points from 9 games.

Our best players on the day were:

Lawrence H (6th):                 7 points from 9 games

Liam G (7th):                           7 / 9

George P (33rd):                    6 / 9

Niraj P (37th):                         5.5 / 9

Top 4 scores make up the team score. 

Special mention:

Shiven R (38th)                      5.5 / 9 

(This our Year 6 student playing in the Senior tournament)

Rodney Jones

Teacher and Chess Coach