Chess Victoria Schools Finals

2014 was another year of growth in school chess in Victoria, as evidenced by the recently held state finals, which I was one of the arbiters for.
The finals started with the Secondary Open finals at Brighton Grammar. Melbourne High were once again the winning school, but the margin was much closer than it has been in recent years. Kai Jee Soo from Box Hill High was the only player to finish on 7/7 for the day & took out the individual honours.
Full results are on the Chess Victoria website.

 Photos from the Secondary Open final

The Girls finals, for both Secondary & Primary was held the next day at Lauriston Girls School. Mount View Primary took out the Primary girls division, with Cassandra Lim from Waverley Christian College being the only player to finish with 7/7. The Secondary Girls event was won by Presbyterian Ladies College, while there was a seven-way tie for first with Zhi Lin Guo from Balwyn High, Denise Lim from Billanook College, Alanna Chew Lee from Camberwell Girls, Grace Quah from MacRobertson Girls & May-Yi Foo, Vivienca Luong & Nidhi Wadhwa all from Presbyterian Ladies College all scoring 6/7 in the individual competition.
Full results are available on the Chess Victoria website. Primary Girls here, Secondary Girls here.  

 Photos from the Girls final

Participation Certificate given to all players at the Girls event

The Primary Open division is so big that the finals are split over four semi-finals, with the leading teams from each of these semi-finals meeting in a team against team format final a few weeks later.
The first semi-final was won by Wesley Elsternwick, with Jay Landau from Mount Scopus being the only player to finish on 7/7. The second semi-final was won by Deepdene Primary, with Daniel Roisman from St Kilda Primary the day's top scorer with 6.5/7. The third semi-final was won by Waverley Christian College, with siblings Cassandra & Christian Lim, both from Waverley Christian College finishing with 7/7. The final semi-final was won by Mount View Primary, with Leon Chen & Luis Chan, both from Mount View, finishing with 7/7.
The finals are to be played next week between the top 20 scoring schools from the four semi-finals. The winners of the semi-finals are the obvious favourites, but in a different format of school against school, the results could be a little different from early expectations.
Full results are on the Chess Victoria website.
Semi-final 1 (German Club Monday), Semi-final 2 (German Club Tuesday), Semi-final 3 (Glen Waverley Secondary Thursday), Semi-final 4 (Glen Waverley Secondary Friday).

 Participation certificates for all players in the Primary Open semi-finals

Monday Semi-final

Tuesday Semi-final

Wednesday Semi-final

Thursday Semi-final

 

There are still two finals to be played - the Primary Open final, as well as the newly-created Prep-Year 3 Junior Open final.



Australian Schools Teams Championships

The Australian Schools Teams Championship is coming up this weekend on the Gold Coast & promises to be an exciting weekend of chess. Although I won't be there - I'm the Arbiter for the Andrew Saint & Hannibal Swartz Memorial Weekender at the Melbourne Chess Club - I'll definitely keep an eye on things over the course of the weekend.
The history of the event shows that Victoria have been very strong in recent years, taking home two titles each year since 2009, with 2005 being the last year that a Victorian school did not win an Australian title.
The teams for the event see a few familiar names, along with a few 'newcomers', but most of the teams are very strong for school teams by almost any standard, with many of the players, particularly in the Open division, having regular experience at chess clubs or weekenders around Australia.
Below is my preview of the event & how I think the different divisions will finish up.
The Secondary Open should be a massacre in favour of Melbourne High. With IM Bobby Cheng on board 1, IM Ari Dale on board 2 & FM Luke Li on board 3, I think they may well be the strongest  school team ever seen in Australian Chess. Allen Yu & reserve Nicholas Chan are by no means weak either & I think the biggest challenge for the team will be to see if they can win with a perfect score! Ari & Luke outrate their competition by over 400 points & Luke would in fact be board 1 for any of the other teams based on his rating! Queenslanders Yi Liu & Ryan Louie (Queensland as the host state is able to field two teams in some divisions to avoid a bye) will most likely be Bobby's toughest competition, but I'd still be backing the Australian Open Champ in any case. The biggest challenge to a clean sweep may well be the ACT team, which has Stuart Mason on board 4, in a team that lacks top-level strength, but makes up for it in depth.
The Secondary Girls event looks to once again be Queensland's for the taking, with Leteisha Simmonds leading Somerville House for another year. The team also has good depth, which is an advantage in the Girls divisions, with Abbotsleigh from NSW & Mac Robertson from Victoria probably providing their closest competition based on team depth.
The Primary Open should in theory be a two-horse race, with the question being whether the Chan brothers from Mount View in Victoria can do better than the Willathgamuwa brothers from the Kings School in New South Wales. On paper the Willathgamuwa brothers are stronger, but the Victorian side has more depth, which should make for an interesting competition. The two Queensland teams both seem to be fairly even across the four board, which is a good indicator of depth, so I would expect them to also figure in the final placings.
The Primary Girls event can be a bit of a tough one to pick, as teams often have players with little or no chess experience outside of the school environment. Having said that, the St Andrews team from Victoria looks very strong, with the top two board being regulars at chess clubs & the other two players recently starting to play at chess clubs. Somerset College & Somerville House from Queensland always seem to produce strong girls teams for these events, so I would consider them contenders for the title, regardless of the ratings of the players, while Curtin Primary from the ACT is the only team with a rated board 4 player, so their depth may serve them well for the competition.
The official website for the tournament is http://www.gardinerchess.com.au/australian-schools-teams-championship & I would expect it to be up to the usual standard of anything run by Graeme Gardiner. Best of luck to all competitors & hopefully Victoria can continue their recent success & bring a few Australian titles back with them!

Victorian Primary Open final

The Victorian Primary Open final saw 22 teams of 5 from various parts of the state (though mostly from suburban Melbourne) fight it out for the title of Victorian Primary Schools Champion at Box Hill Chess Club. Looking at the event on paper before the games started, it looked like it could become a competition for second place & that is exactly how the event turned out, with Mount View Primary running away with the event, scoring an extremely impressive total of 33.5 out of a possible 35 points.
Of course it came as no surprise to see that Mount View also managed to scoop all the board prizes - Kris Chan taking board 1 with 6.5/7 (on tiebreak ahead of David Cannon); Luis Chan won the board 2 prize with 7/7; Hamish Jones took out board 3 also with 7/7; Leon Chen won board 4 with 7/7; Alex Fan won the board 5 prize with 6/7 (on tiebreak ahead of Rowan Mikosza);
The fight for second place ended up in favour of Waverley Christian College, who finished a few points ahead of Deepdene in third place.
To give you an idea of how close the competition was, Wesley Elsternwick finished in fourth place on 20 points, just missing out on the medals, yet there was only 5 points (the maximum available for one round) separating them from Winters Flat & Great Ryrie, who finished with 15 point in a tie for 16th place!
Hopefully Mount View can continue the recent trend of Victorian Primary School teams & take out the Australian Final, to be held on the Gold Coast in about a week's time. I'll take a look at the event in a little more detail in a separate post, but I would expect another strong showing from the Victorian teams, particularly in the Open division events.

 Play underway in the Primary Open Final at Box Hill Chess Club

 The other half of the playing hall - 110 players in total!

 Medallions for the members of the top 3 teams, trophies for the top 3 schools, as well as trophies for the best score on each of the five boards!

 A key matchup - David Cannon against Kris Chan - which ended in a draw

 Plenty of parents & teachers were on hand to watch the action

 The winning team from Mount View Primary with their hands full of trophies!

The Mount View team with both the Victorian & Australian Schools trophies - hopefully the silver cup will return with them from Queensland!

More Victorian Schools Finals

Last week the remaining semi-finals of the Primary Open event were held, with a total of 22 schools qualifying for the upcoming final in early November.
The second of the semi-finals was held at Club Tivoli in Windsor & had 149 students from 21 schools, with the top 7 schools qualifying for the final. The tournament itself was won by David Cannon with 7/7, while Wesley College took out the school honours for the day.

 Semi-final 2 underway at Club Tivoli

A full house at Club Tivoli for semi-final 2

The third semi-final was held the following day, also at Club Tivoli & was slightly smaller, with 107 students from 14 schools, with the top 6 schools qualifying for the final. The tournament saw a tie for first between Zun De Kai Sim & Timothy Krstevski on 6.5/7, while Greythorn was the overall winning school on the day.

 The calm before the storm as the first players arrive for the day

Slightly less crowded, but still plenty of chess at semi-final number 3

The fourth of the semi-finals took place at Glen Waverley Secondary College & had 129 students from 18 schools, with the top 6 schools qualifying for the final. The tournament was dominated by students from Mount View Primary, who were the winning school on the day, but it saw a three-way tie for first between Hamish Jones, Kris Chan & Luis Chan who all scored 7/7, with Hamish taking the winner's trophy on countback.

 The playing area at Glen Waverley Secondary before the players arrive

 Play underway at semi-final 4

Other boards during semi-final 4

All of these semi-finals have meant that 22 teams have now qualified for the final, to be played at Box Hill Chess Club on November 8. The qualified teams are as follows:
Alphington PS, Canterbury PS, Clifton Hill PS, Deepdene PS, Flemington PS, Geelong East PS, Great Ryrie PS, Greythorn PS, Haileybury College Brighton, Haileybury College Newlands, Ivanhoe PS, Laburnum PS, Melbourne Montessori School, Milgate PS, Mount View PS, St. Leonards PS, Sandringham PS, Spensley Street PS, Wales Street PS, Waverley Christian College, Wesley College Elsternwick, Winters Flat PS (Castlemaine).

Based on the players & teams from the semi-final, I would expect the Mount View team to be the favourites to win the event, although with the team format (teams of 5 playing against one another rather than an individual swiss with totals added together), these events can often be decided by who performs best on the lower boards for a team.

Victorian Schools finals

It's that time of year ... and not just in the various footy codes! It's also finals time for school chess!
Over the last week, Chess Victoria have hosted the first of the Primary Open Semi-Finals (there's a total of 4 to be run this year, up from 2 last year), as well as the Secondary Open Final, the Secondary Girls final & the Primary Girls final!
I have been the chief arbiter for all of these events, with NY & Jaclyn Wong helping at all of these events, while other arbiters have included Leonid Sandler, Tanya Krstevska & Tony Davis.
These events bring together the best of Victorian school chess, and often prove to be tougher events than the Victorian Junior proper (U14-18, U12, U8-10), which was held earlier in the year!
As there are so many Primary school event, the finals are a multi-stage event, with 4 semi-final qualifiers which are run as individual swiss events, which then lead to the final, which is a teams swiss event, with 5 players per team (school). The Secondary Open, Secondary girls & Primary girls events are all run as individual swisses, with the top 5 scores from each school going towards the overall school total, with the top school in each division taking out the Victorian title, as well as qualifying for the Australian Schools Championship, which is held in early December each year, this time in Queensland.
The first event on the finals calendar this year was a Primary Open semi-final at Billanook College. It was a relatively small tournament, with 60 players from 12 schools. In the individual tournament, Ethan Lim was dominant, winning with 7/7, although he was pushed in a few games, most notably by Carl Dingfelder (who finished in a tie for 2nd on 6/7).

 Tournament hall at Billanook College

 The key clash of the day - Dingfelder v Lim

The winning school on the day - Alphington Primary!

Next on the schools agenda was the Secondary Open final held at Brighton Grammar. This was a large event, with 153 players from 23 schools. On paper, the event was going to be dominated by Melbourne High, and in the end that is exactly what happened - when you have a team lead by IM Bobby Cheng, FM Luke Li & IM Ari Dale, the competition is going to be in for a tough day! In the end, both Bobby & Ari finished on 7/7, while Luke scored 6.5/7 to scoop the top three individual places, as well as ensure a commanding victory for the school overall on the day.

Top boards, with Bobby Cheng on board 1, with Luke Li (back to camera) & Ari Dale on the top 3 boards - a place they stayed on for almost the entire day!

 The tournament hall

 One side of the tournament hall, with the top boards in the row closest to the camera

 The other side of the tournament hall

Prizes for the tournament - the perpetual shield for the winning school, trophies for the top 3 places & top 3 schools, as well as medallions for the top 5 scorers from each of the top 3 schools.

The perpetual shield - which will now have Melbourne High engraved on it for the first time!

The following day saw the Girls finals, both the Secondary Girls final, as well as the Primary Girls final, both held simultaneously at Lauriston Girls School. The secondary final, which had 68 players from 16 schools, was won by MacRobertson Girls School, with Zhi Lin Guo being the individual winner with 7/7, while the primary final, which had 74 players from 17 schools, was won by St Andrews with Kee Mei Chin the individual winner, also with 7/7.

 The Secondary section of the Girls final

 The Primary section of the Girls final

 Trophies & medals for the winners!

 Quite a few parents & teachers in the audience for the day

A crowd gathers around a tense final round game between Phoebe Fan & Licia Yao

 Certificate for participants in the Primary & Secondary Girls finals

 Certificate for participants in the Primary Open semi-finals

Certificate for participants in the upcoming Primary Open final

There's more events in the next few weeks, so I'll try to update the blog with results & photos when I get a chance.

Chess Victoria Primary Open Final

Friday saw the final of the Chess Victoria Primary Open Schools competition played at Box Hill Chess Club. 110 players, representing 22 schools from around Victoria participated, including many of the best primary school players in the state. The semi-finals the previous week gave some indication of the teams who would likely be fighting for first place, however with the finals being played using a team swiss format rather than an individual swiss, this was sure to favour teams that could score highly across multiple boards.
Greythorn Primary got off to a fantastic start, winning their first three matches 5-0 to lead by 3.5 points & this was to prove to be an unassailable lead throughout the day, although by the conclusion of the day, this lead was only half a point! Greythorn managed to win all seven matches throughout the day, so deserved to be the winners, although the Mount View team almost caught them by the final round, finishing with two 5-0 results in the final two rounds. Deepdene were also in contention throughout the day, but never quite caught up to Greythorn & ultimately finished third.
Outstanding performances were achieved by Enoch Fan (board 1 for Greythorn) & Hamish Jones (board 4 for Mount View), who both scored a perfect 7/7! A number of other players also scored 6/7, most of whom won board prizes (although there were a number of board 2 players who scored 6/7), which are included in the full results on ChessChat.
As with the other winners, I would like to wish the Greythorn team all the best at the Australian Schools Finals in Canberra in early December.
Full results are available on ChessChat.
Unfortunately my phone died during the event, so I only have photos from the early rounds
Top 5 boards in action

 Lower boards in action

 Plenty of teachers, parents & coaches watching the games in progress

Chess Victoria Primary Open Semi Final 2

Yesterday saw the second of the Chess Victoria Primary Schools Semi-Finals played at Club Tivoli in Windsor, this time with 179 players from across Melbourne & Geelong. Once again, many of the best primary school players in the country were in attendance, including Luis Chan, Kris Chan & Alanna Chew-Lee, amongst others. As with yesterdays event, the favourites once again filled the top placings, with Kris Chan taking individual honours with 7/7, his brother Luis finishing second with 6.5/7 & Alanna Chew Lee headed those on 6/7 to also be the best finishing girl. Ryan Lumpreiks also had an excellent tournament, being the only player all day to take any points from the Chan brothers, after drawing his round 7 game with Luis, as well as being the only player other than the Chan brothers not to lose a game all day! 
In terms of the team results, Mount View & Deepdene were the the class teams of the field, finishing with 31.5 & 28.5 points respectively, which was 5 points ahead of the schools in third place! 
This sets up an exciting Final, with a number of schools very closely matched at the top of the field, with Mount View, Greythorn, Ivanhoe & Deepdene being the teams most likely to take out the title. Will the team format help or hinder some of these schools? We'll find out on November 9 at Box Hill Chess Club, where the top primary schools will battle it out for a place in the National Final in Canberra. 
Full results from the day are available on ChessChat. 
Also, with a number of teams finishing tied for potential qualifying places, there may be 2 extra teams added to the final (potentially 22 teams instead of the intended 20 teams), though this is to be confirmed by Chess Victoria in the coming days. 

Below are some photos from the day: 

The room was once again full for semi-final 2! This photo is taken at the opposite end of the room to the other photos

 The top boards were roped off to ensure players were not disturbed

 Another view of the venue with a round just underway

 A small canteen, with hot chips, hot dogs and other snacks was available during the day

Top boards ready to go in the final round

 Final round underway, with the players on the top boards in deep concentration