The New Zealand National Finals of the Super 14 Interschool Chess took place on Monday 18 October at Pigeon Mountain Primary School in three divisions: Secondary, Intermediate and Primary. The Secondary competition was tight all day, with all three participants still able to win the event going into the last round. Tokoroa High School had led most of the day, but Hauraki Plains College had surged in round 8 to take a narrow lead into the final round. They failed to add to their score in the final round, however, and final round wins by Christopher Meyers, Ranginui Paparoa and Saige McMahon got Tokoroa over the line. Final scores in the Secondary Division: Tokoroa High School 19.5; Hauraki Plains College 18.5; Tauhara College 14.5.
Tokoroa High School - Champions
In the Intermediate division Bucklands Beach Intermediate kept the pressure on defending champions Somerville Intermediate for much of the day, but Somerville took a handy, though not insurmountable lead into the final round. Just as they had done all day, however, Leo Zhu and Luke Li came through for Somerville to wrap up the title, both completing outstanding 9/9 days in the process. Bucklands Beach Intermediate did enough to keep second place, while Rosehill Intermediate put in a big final round to take bronze. Final scores: Somerville 29.5; Bucklands Beach 25; Rosehill 23.5; The Cathedral Grammar School Christchurch 21.5; Waikowhai 20; Stanley Avenue 17.5; Kimihia 13.
Somerville Intermediate - champions
Last year Milford Primary edged out Pigeon Mountain Primary to take the title, and these two were the main favourites again in the Primary Division. With Milford’s top player away at the World Youth Championships, and a team of only 4 players entered for the day, they were going to need all 4 to play at their best to retain their title. Milford made a fast start, scoring 14 out of a possible 16 in the first 4 rounds, to open up a gap of 2.5 points over Hillsborough with Pigeon Mountain half a point further back. Then Pigeon Mountain put on a spurt, and when 3 of the 4 Milford players lost their round 7 games both teams were locked together on 20 points. With a perfect score in round 8 Pigeon Mountain edged ahead, taking a 1 point lead into the final round. When Pigeon Mountain’s top scorer Richard Jiang lost his final round game it became clear that the match-up between Milford’s Bella Qian and Pigeon Mountain’s Yiwei Qi was going to decide the title. A draw would have been enough for Pigeon Mountain, but Bella won that crucial game to swing things Milford’s way. Final scores: Milford 26.5; Pigeon Mountain 26; Hillsborough 24; Helensville 20.5; Papatoetoe Central, View Road 18.5; Brockville, Opaheke, Stanley Avenue, Bucklands Beach Primary 16.5; Parakai 14.5, Ardgowan, Waiuku 13.5; Lincoln 6, Tokoroa 2.
Milford Primary School - champions
That final round win enabled Bella Qian to edge out team-mate Crystal Zhu by half a point for the top girl prize on the day. With 7/9 Bella finished in a tie for third place overall in the individual standings. Individual gold went to Leo Zhu (Somerville, 9/9) on tie-break from Luke Li (Somerville, 9/9) with Richard Jiang (Pigeon Mountain, 7/9) taking the bronze on tie-break from 4 other players who scored 7.
For all results, details and updated ratings from the event go to our results page here.
We congratulate all who took part on the day, as even qualifying for the National final is no mean feat, and hope that Tokoroa High, Somerville Intermediate and Milford Primary will represent us well at the Australian National finals on 29/30 November in Melbourne, the full details of which are here.
