Captain of play: Daniel Loy

First Team members: Daniel Loy, Lasen Silva, Nathan Sun, Jeremy Coombe, Ishaan Singh, and Hugh Masters.

Having lost a number of exceptionally strong Year 13 Chess players at the end of 2022, we entered 2023 with a completely new First Team and a sense of trepidation. No need to worry! Years of internal tournaments had guaranteed that the strength of new team members would allow them to hold their own in the inter-school tournament environment and ensure we were more than competitive in each event.

HBHS came second to New Plymouth in the Super 8 Tournament this year. Shortly thereafter, we made history by winning both Senior and Junior clashes in the annual exchange with Auckland Grammar, a fine achievement for which we have long been striving!

There are two Chess organisations in New Zealand which organise Schools tournaments. NZ Chess Federation runs a series of traditional Rapid Tournaments with teams of four competing against each other and a time control of 25 minutes plus five seconds increment per move per player. Chess Power tournaments are faster with time controls of 15 mins per player and no increment. Players are drawn against others on similar totals and can play against anyone not from their own school. The result depends on the sum of the best four scores. Excellent achievements in all regional tournaments saw us qualify for the National events in both disciplines.

In the NZCF Nationals, we finished joint 6th, having been seeded 10th of the 19 teams who qualified to play.

The Chess Power event brought even greater success with our team winning silver medals in a field of 19.

The following day an individual tournament was held with Lasen Silva the standout player finishing joint third, earning the Power Chess Junior Master title. This was a fine result and a fitting conclusion to Lasen’s High School Chess career.