Somerset Chess

The tournaments are coming thick and fast at present for students playing outside of schools with the Cookies Rapids on Saturday and the Gardiner Chess Blitz and Transfer Championships being held on Sunday. In the Cookies Rapids, Calen Tang scored 4.5/7 to finish in sixth place, whilst also picking up 28 rating points.

He also took out some higher rated opponents in an excellent performance! Oscar Credland-Ballantyne scored 4/7 (and plus 22 rating points) in another very good performance, whilst youngers Harrison Qu, Elijah Hadikusumo, and Alessandro Martinese all took part and scored some good results.

On Sunday morning, the Gardiner Chess Blitz Championship was held with five Somerset students taking part: Byron Morris, Kenny Ming, Eason Wang, Alessandro Martinese and Tamar Chester-Haviv. In what was a tough day for competition, it was the secondary students who starred. Kenny scored 7.5/9 to finish in second position, Byron Morris scored 7/9 for =3rd and Eason Wang scored 6/9 for = seventh.

In the afternoon was the Gardiner Chess Transfer Championship with even more Somerset representation, including Mr Graeme Gardiner playing his first competition of any kind in over four years! Students taking part in the event were: Byron Morris, Kenny Ming, Oliver Yang, Eason Wang from the senior school, Alessandro Martinese, Oscar Credland-Ballantyne, Alessandro Martinese, Harrison Qu, Tamar Chester-Haviv, Dylan Hu, Oliver Moir from the junior school, and current/former Somerset coaches and staff, Graeme Gardiner, Andrew FitzPatrick, Shaun Curtis and Dusan Stojic all playing too. The transfer was a lot of fun with plenty of banter between Somerset students (see some photos below).

Finally, with school coming to an end, don’t forget the Gardiner Chess Holiday Program and Summer Cup which will be running from the 14 December to 17 December in the Gallus classrooms.

Good luck to the Senior Girls team (Lyanna Chan, Jennifer Yeung, Melody Yang, Nina Varcoe) as they play in the Australian Schools Teams Championships (Online) on December 5 and 6 and also to those students competing in the Queensland Junior Chess Championships the following week.

We will be back again in 2021 for another awesome year of chess – keep an eye on the Schoolbox page which will be filled with information in the New Year.