Spartans Chess Holiday Highlights

It has been a super busy time for chess recently, with Inter-School events and many events across the holidays. For a full wrap of the Inter-School events, please read below.

Over the holidays there some of the biggest events in Queensland being held. The first of these was the Gold Coast Open which featured 204 players.

Byron Morris took on the challenge of the Premier Division (which featured a number of Australian Olympiad team members) and was performing well before illness struck and wiped out the back end of his tournament.

Lyanna Chan, Aarav Rawlley and Jennifer Yeung took part in the Major Division which tested all three players across the weekend. Aarav was the standout of the three with 4/7 in what was a very tough field.

In the Minor Division, Oscar Credland-Ballantyne scored 4/6 to finish =11th. Annika Lim, Paul Sang Yum, Paris Liu, Jackson Yeung also all played in this division and performed well – for some it was their first major tournament!

Directly following the Gold Cost Open, was the Queensland Junior Championships in Brisbane, with Under 8, Under 10, Under 12 and Under 18 divisions being played.

In the Under 8 division, Paul Sang Yum scored 5/8 to finish =13th.

In the Under 10 division, Calen Tang recovered from an early loss to score 7/8 and tie for first position and retain his title from last year!

In the Under 12 division, Calen backed up and scored 6/8 to finish = fourth to continue his impressive week. Oscar Credland-Ballantyne scored 5.5/8 for =ninth position in another great performance. Harrison Qu scored 4/8 as one of the youngest players in the field, whilst Paris Liu and Annika Lim also took part in the event.

In the Gold Coast Winter Cup held last week, 21 Somerset students competed making up 1/3 of the field! Top scorer was Oscar Credland-Ballantyne with 5.5/8 for ninth place, whilst Paul Sang Yum scored 5/8 as did William Zhao and Kush Veeramachaneni.

On the final weekend of the holidays, Calen Tang and Harrison Qu travelled to Redcliffe for the Peninsula Open. Calen took some impressive scalps over the course of the weekend and scored 4/6 for =10th position and a share of his rating group. Harrison took on many players above him in the field but still scored 2/6 for the event, placing him =sixth in his rating category.

On the weekend just gone the Arianne Caoili Memorial Tournament was held. Arianne was a former Somerset student, Women’s International Master and Australian Representative who tragically passed away following a car accident in Armenia in 2020. Calen Tang, Oscar Credland-Ballantyne, Harrison Qu, Ruhara and Sanaaya Mapabandara, Annika Lim and Paul Sang Yum all took part in the event, with the highlights being Sanaaya finishing as the second best primary girl, Ruhara the third best secondary girl, whilst Harrison was second in his rating group.

We look forward to seeing everyone again at lunch clubs and the Friday afternoon chess which returns for the duration of the term. For any questions about chess, please contact me via email.