Chess State Finals
On October 12th, students from Mac.Rob participated in the Secondary Girls Chess State Finals, and placed 3rd! This is an incredible achievement, as in recent years, Mac.Rob has only begun to place in the top three! This year’s winners are once again the reigning champions, PLC.
We would like to congratulate Aaditri (Year 10), Amrit (Year 9), Anjali (Year 9), Annaeya (Year 9), Callista (Year 10), Catherine (Year 10), Kathleen (Year 9), Sanika (Year 9), Tiffany (Year 9), and Xin (Year 9) for participating in the tournament, and a special mention to our top 5 scorers, Xin, Callista, Amrit, Kathleen, and Sanika for scoring a total of 21 points (a mere 3 points off 1st place)!
This tournament was held on chess.com, and included 7 rounds of chess, with a time control of 15 minutes per player. The whole tournament lasted approximately 3 and a half hours, and was indeed tiring! We are incredibly grateful to the organisers of this tournament: Chess Victoria and Peter Tsai.
Here is an example of one of our games!
“This position was from my second last game, against an incredible player from St. Catherines. I was white in this position, with my last move being Bxh6. She replied as I expected with g6, trapping my Queen. At this moment I was extremely nervous, and worried that my pre-calculation to counter this move would backfire. However I calmly responded with Nxf6, and the game continued as follows: Nxf6, Qxf6, Bg5+, gxh5, and finally Bxf6. This gave me a clearly leading endgame, which I converted into a win.” - Xin (Year 9)
In 2019, Mac.Rob competed in the same tournament and played phenomenally. Our Mac.Robbians placed 2nd! As you can see, Mac.Rob has the ability to place in the top 3, and 1st place is well within reach. Our goal is to come first in next year’s State Finals, and then progress to nationals! Nationals is a high level tournament (held in different states each year), where all school state champions compete against each other, for the utmost prize of being crowned the best secondary girls school at chess!
We have big plans for chess at Mac.Rob next year, so watch out for our emails! We want as many people to have a go at chess and we are hoping that we can participate in many more tournaments in 2022 and beyond.
Xin, Callista and Kathleen