Some of our our Avonhead tamariki took part in the Canterbury Chess Power Competition. Congratulations to all students who took part.

On Tuesday we hosted the Chess Power regional tournament.  Avonhead had 66 children play, with ten of these children playing in their first ever tournament, and a large number playing in their second tournament.

Our best place Rookie (children who have never played in a tournament before) was Reuben Rhodes who finished 7th on 4 points (2 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss); followed by Sanjini Shankar who was 10th with 3.5 points (2 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses). What was awesome about this group of children was that by round three they were reading the draw without any help, working out what colour they were playing and what board they were playing on, using clocks, and recording their results with me, all by themselves. For year 3 and 4 kids, I thought this was pretty awesome!! Not to mention some great chess in between!

In the Junior division (these are Year 1-6 children who have played in at least one tournament before, so for a lot of our juniors, this was actually only their second tournament), our Junior A team came 1st, followed by the Junior B's. Alan Binu won overall, Vatsal Maarka came 3rd, Ritul Joseph 4th and Tyler Burnell 5th. Top Junior girl was Momoka Hudson who also finished 7th overall (in her second tournament ever!!).

Finally in the Intermediate division, our A team finished 2nd.  Unfortunately the senior division only had three people in it, so for the team's part of the competition they played with the intermediates and as a team beat us. Our A team was Ritika Joseph, Jayden Lee, Finn McNeill and Callum Busfield. Individually, Ritika came 1st, Jayden 2nd and Andy Jiang 3rd.The following children qualified for the Champions Trophy (basically the individual nationals) - Alan, Vatsal, Ritul, Momoka, Ritika, Jayden and Andy. Plus our Junior and Intermediate teams have qualified for the Team's Nationals, also in October. Even though we qualified for this event in May, qualifying again today should allow us to increase the size of the team we can take.

There are so many benefits to playing chess, so it was great to see so many Avonhead students knowing how to play and taking part today (about 10% of our school!!!). Chess club generally happens in Room 27 on Wednesday lunchtimes, although Mr Weusten has been taking it this term in Term 3/4. It should return to Room 27 next week.

Mrs Busfield, thank you so much for all your time, energy and passion for chess. It is so fantastic that we had such a big contingent of tamariki taking part and that you are such an advocate for our chess players. What awesome results!!