Chess Tournament

Online Interschool Chess Tournament

On Tuesday 31st August, 10 Glen Eira College students participated in an online Chess Victoria Secondary interschool chess tournament. The standard of chess in this event was very high, as a number of Victoria’s top junior chess players were competing. Despite the very strong competition as well as the fact that Glen Eira College was competing in an interschool chess tournament for the first time, our school’s overall performance was quite pleasing, with the College finishing in fourth place out of six competing schools and only four games behind the second placed school. 

All students who represented Glen Eira College in this event are to be commended for their participation. In particular, special congratulations are due to Salil Gudup of Year 8 and Sanjay Bandla of Year 7, as they both won 4 of their 7 games, which was an outstanding effort given that they were competing against so many strong chess players. Based on our school’s performance in this tournament as well as the enthusiastic participation of our students, the future for chess at Glen Eira College is very promising.

Well done to the following students who represented Glen Eira College in this event:

Year 9: Oskar De Bruin

Year 8: Param Dave, Salil Gudup, Jamie Katic, Alexander Tari & Hasini Teddu 

Year 7: Hayden Baker, Sanjay Bandla, Nicholas Jiang & Evan Shields

This screenshot shows a game involving Sanjay Bandla of Year 7, who is playing with the black pieces. Sanjay plays the brilliant move of bishop from the square e6 to the square d5 to checkmate the white king and swiftly end the game. The white king cannot move to any safe squares and cannot take the black pawn on the square g3 because it is protected by the black queen.  

In this game, Oskar De Bruin of Year 9 plays his rook from the square e1 to the square e8 and checkmates the black king. This is the classic bank rank checkmate. Quite simply, the black king has nowhere to run because it is trapped behind its own pawns. 

 This screenshot shows the final position of a game involving Param Dave of Year 8, who is playing with the black pieces. Param perfectly executes the electric fence checkmate by moving his queen from the square g3 to the square g1. The white king has no escape because the black rook on the square e2 has created an electric fence which prevents the white king from moving to any of the squares a2, b2 or c2.

Chris Zuccala

Chess Organiser