Saints have right moves
Jack Hardy, Year 9, St Augustine’s College
LAST Thursday, March 7, marked the start of the Far North Queensland InterSchool Chess Tournament, attended by 18 Saints students.
The seven rounds of the tournament continued throughout the day, with an excellent performance by all five Saints teams.
Our top team achieved second place overall, only half a point behind the winning team.
Two of the Saint Augustine’s teams placed fourth and seventh, out of a total of 26 teams entered in the competition.
As a result of this tournament’s placings, three of the Saint Augustine’s teams will compete among the eight teams comprising A division – the top division in the region.
This will make Saints the school with the most players in the top division.
Individually, Saints team players also excelled.
Andrew Robertson, Year 7, won six of his games, losing only to the eventual winner of the tournament.
He, together with Ethan Donnelly, tied with two other players for second place.
After countback, a process counting the average rating of opponents played, Ethan was ranked second and Andrew fifth.
Four Saints students were also among the 11 who tied for sixth place, including Futa Ma, who was placed highest at seventh after countback.
Out of the 89 competitors, eight Saints players achieved a merit (each winning at least four and a half of the seven games played) or a medal.
Despite clashing with the Year 7 and 12 camps, the Saints players represented Saint Augustine’s well, and did our school and themselves proud.
On behalf of all the teams, I would like to welcome our new Year 7 chess players, Andrew Robertson, Ryan Mann, Aiden Latter, Ben Lesmeister, Miles Whipp and Aiden Prestipino. Congratulations to Andrew, Ethan and all the chess players on their performance, especially our Year 7 boys, some of whom played in their first tournament. I would also like to thank Mr Bellshaw for co-ordinating the event.