Tournament:
There were an impressive total of 272 children who entered our popular tournament in the Autumn school holidays, the Inner West Chess Challenge, held at the Sydney Latvian Society Club in Strathfield. This was the 18th such event that we have organised, beginning almost ten years ago.
We had a wide range of ages and abilities of the competitors, ranging from ages 5 up to 16, and from unrated up to 1034 JCL rating. There were several players who had never used a chess clock or played in a tournament before, while some of the more experienced players have won many chess trophies.
There were 8 rounds played throughout the day, and the format of the competition was such that every player competes in all the rounds – no one is knocked out of the tournament.
At lunchtime, when 5 rounds had been completed, there were 7 players still on a perfect score of 5 points. After the next round, only the top three seeds were left on 100% - Kevin and his brother Rowan Willathgamuwa, and third seed Gordon Yang. In a tense battle, where any result was possible, Rowan tried too hard for a win and made a slip with his king, which fell into a checkmating pattern against Kevin. Gordon defeated Aidan Odenthal, so this left only two players on 7/7 – Kevin and Gordon. In the final round, Kevin was able to hold his nerves against Gordon and complete the tournament with a perfect 8 points from 8 games, so Kevin is the new Inner West Chess Challenge Champion – congratulations Kevin!
As usual in a large Swiss tournament, there was a big tie for second place, this time between Gordon Yang, Rowan Willathgamuwa, George Andromedas, Michael Parsons, Anthony Fikh and Vincent Qiang. Well played everyone! The full list of results and prizewinners can be downloaded from the links below.
Sydney Academy of Chess would like to thank once again the Sydney Latvian Society Club, for providing a great venue suitable for a chess competition, as well as our arbiters and canteen helpers for all their hard work during the day.
We hope to see you at another chess tournament very soon!
