It began on the fine morning of Saturday, 22nd of October at Alfriston College in Auckland, we were a four person team, Molly Meek, Aaron Coutts, Hamish Gunn, and myself Ethan Parsons. Today would be the Chess Power Nationals Team’s Competition, and we were competing in the Senior division (Year 9-13) against the best of the best from around the country, students from the far north to the deep south. Today we would win or lose as a team. Every win we gained as an individual was a point for Greymouth High School, every draw was half a point and a loss was nothing. As a team we were at the lower end of the skill range, we wouldn’t be steamrolling our competition like in the West Coast Regionals, we would be facing Junior Masters, and high rated guru’s who spend their days playing chess. But we were there to play and we would not go down without a fight.

The day was broken into three sections, we would play two rounds of chess and then have morning tea. Every game was played on a clock, each player got 15 minutes on their clock, after they moved they would press a button and their opponent’s clock would start, and vice versa. So time was indeed of the essence, and the pressure was on. After morning tea and our first two rounds we launched straight into the next three rounds before lunch. At this stage we had all had more losses than wins, our opponents were tough and there were no easy victories to be had. After lunch we played another two rounds and then it was afternoon tea, and finally, after a long and arduous day of many close calls and a few wins under each of our belts we had our final two rounds to play. At the end of the teams event, we had prize giving and headed back to our respective places where we were staying. Safe to say that lessons were learnt and our brains were truly worked.

The very next day our three year 10s, Molly, Aaron and Hamish headed off to play in the individual chess champion trophy competition. It was another grueling day to say the least and they each came out with some wins. A big thanks to Mrs Su Coutts who was the one to organize our foray, and not to mention kept us fed. While our team never made it to any high rated positions I believe we represented the coast, and the school, to the very best of our abilities, and it was an experience that we will most definitely remember going forward.