Kings, Queens & Schemes

Vernon Clarke

ChessMates Coordinator

The schools Chess State Final was held at Xavier College on Thursday October 8. 

BSC fielded a team of four ChessMates, with each student playing 9 rounds of chess during the tournament. Nine games of chess in one day is a lot - so our students had to muster a lot of resilience and determination to last through the day.

All of the ChessMates representing our school are strong chess players, and the state final brought together 446 of the very best student players from across Victoria. It was a true test of strategy and endurance — every match was a mental battle against opponents who had studied openings, endings and classic games, and who have spent countless hours honing their skills (just as we had!)

Click on the photos to enlarge.

There is an interesting flow to a chess round, as most students know what their opening moves will be and how they will respond to the opening of another player. As a consequence, in a timed game these moves happen very quickly. Then the board will progress to being in a unique state with pieces in positions that a player may have never seen before. 

It is interesting to see how the students handle this mid-part of the game. Some of them were scanning the pieces as if frantically searching for a solution to a difficult problem. I saw one player who had picked up their queen and was twirling it as if it might give him additional powers!  The player who eventually won the tournament would stare up at the roof of the gymnasium while his clock ran down - but that seemed to work for him! 

Our students did really well with Killian O'Connor McKay earning 5.5 points, Miro Mukai 5 points, Oscar Watson 4.5 points, and Lance Balmes with 4 points. The BSC team ended up tied with Xavier College, coming in at #29 out of 71 schools.

Miro Mukai

Year 9

The chess tournament was not only a challenge but an opportunity for me to meet friends I hadn't seen for about 10 years! The event wasn’t just fun and games for me though. I was very demoralised after an amazing sequence of moves turned into a disaster!

• Note: Miro had his opponent on the backfoot, but then blundered his queen.

Oscar Watson

Year 9

The chess tournament was an amazing opportunity for me to meet and play against some of the best student chess players in the state. l played against a lot of good openings and spotted a lot of good tactics - and missed a few!  I gained a lot of experience - I won a few games, I lost a few games,  but at the end of the day I was happy with my performance.