Chess Report

The Somerset Spartans have defended their title to be the top Gold Coast Secondary School once again in a commanding performance!

The team of Byron Morris, Eason Wang, Kenny Ming and Jared Consiglio-Cockle scored 23.5/28, winning six match ups with one draw. This team will now represent the Gold Coast along with King's Christian College and The Southport School at the State Finals in October. Byron (6.5/7), Eason (6/7) and Kenny (7/7) all won their board prizes.

Unfortunately, the second team finished just outside the qualification spots, finishing in fifth position.

In the A Division, Somerset 3 and 4 finished in fourth and fifth spots. Individually, Jenson Turner scored 6/7 to finish in third place, whilst Oscar Credland-Ballantyne, Aadi Rai, Ruhara Mapabandara and Tony Guan earnt Merits.

In the B Division, Somerset 6 (Jackson Yeung, Nate Van Den Brink, Daniel Dawson, and Trishi Shivakumar) finished in second position, with Jackson scoring 6/7 to gain second place whilst Nate Van Den Brink was only half a point back with 5.5/7 in fourth place.

The Hinterland Primary event was also held this week, with Somerset sending a lot of Junior players across the road to take part.

In the A Division, Somerset finished midfield, however had some good scores from Paul Sang Yum, William Zhao and Hayden Li who all scored 4/7.

In the B Division, the teams again finished midfield, with Joshua Thompson the pick of the players with 5/7 whilst Ruben Arcobelli scored 4/7.

In the C Division, the young team of Somerset 7 (Taya Liu, Theo Appel, Alan Zeng, Callum Deay) won the tournament by a massive 7 points with Somerset 8 (Aaron Wang, Lincoln Li, Lachlan Rowe, Liam Hunt) finishing in third place. Taya Liu scored a perfect 7/7, Theo Appel 6/7, Aaron Wang 6/7, Alan Zeng 6/7 to dominate the individual standings as well. Callum Deay and Sion Kim also scored 4/7 in solid performances.

In D Division, Somerset 11 (Chloe Li, Isabella Jennings, Alisa Lai, Alex Lee) took the event from Somerset 12 (Gorden Hu, Edmund Lee, Amalie DeBray, Blake Nobbs). Austin Liu was the standout individual with 6/7 with Gorden Hu scoring 5/7, Edmund Lee 4.5/7 and Amalie DeBray 4/7.

We now look forward to the Gold Coast Primary Finals in two weeks time and wish our top two teams the best of luck!

Don’t forget the Gold Coast Junior Championships being held on the 28th and 29th August – see here for details – which features Under 8, Under 10 and Open Divisions and is a great tournament for many players!

Keen players can also take part in the Friday afternoon sessions from 3.30pm to 5.30pm. Please contact me for details.