Interschool Chess Summary By Xinyi, Jimi, Alex.Z , Year 5
Last week we went to a chess tournament at St Paul's school. There were 31 teams!
When we got there, we started to run around not doing much. When it was finally time to play, we sat down at our table and waited. Almost everyone else had an opponent! Our first opponent was Chaucer C and they were REALLY easy because it was only their first chess tournament so they were a little nervous. Everyone easily won and it was a 4-0 sweep.
Our next opponent was St Paul´s A team. They were really good and we lost by half a point. If you win, you get a point. If you draw then you get a half point each and if you lose then you lose all your points.
Our next opponent was a different story. First, we had to go against ACG Sunderland team B. They were very challenging and insanely good. Only Brian and Jimi won. ACG Sunderland played very well and none of them made illegal moves. If you make an illegal move it means that you need an illegal card. If you get 3 illegal cards then you lose the game. We beat our next opponent 3½ -½ and moved on.
We then played St Paul´s C team who put up a good fight in chess and we ended up drawing with them.
We then played our final game against Lincoln Heights and that was our downfall. Jimi went up against a 7 year old (who is better at chess than he looks). Everyone of us lost except Brian, and Brian won immediately with the 4 move checkmate! If we had concentrated more on the last round, we could have gone to the National Chess Tournament in October.
Xinyi said: “ At least we were in 9th place! Since last time we were 19th place.”
In conclusion, we had a blast at St Paul's school. We will definitely go to the nationals next year.
