On Tuesday the 26th of June, four MPS Year 6 boys attended the Canterbury Primary and Intermediate Schools’ Chess Competition at the Halswell community centre. They were Tomas C, Isaac T, Oliver F, and Luke C-D.

There were 16 teams competing in the Year 1 to 6 competition in five rounds of chess matches. Your team was awarded points depending on whether you won, lost, or drew the game, with the points added up in the end to decide the winning team. For most of us, it was our first time playing timed games with chess clocks, where you only had 15 minutes to play your game in.

One of the best parts of the day was when one of the officials, Tim, played all the team captains (the No.1 player in the team) at once. He would circle around two tables of players, and you could only make a move when he was in front of you. He was so good he checkmated two people in only four moves.

It was a fun but long day, and we all learnt a lot about playing in chess competitions.