National Chess Championship | 2022
From December 2nd to 4th, we attended the National Chess Competition in Cairns… and won!!!
On our first day, we reached Trinity Anglican School bright and early, ready for the stressful matches coming our way. Our first match was against the hosting school, Trinity Anglican School. Even though many of us have played in previous national competitions, being back in a tense environment with high stakes was stressful. However, we stayed calm and played our best chess, which enabled us to beat them 4-0. The next round was against Somerset College, our greatest competitor. They had many strong players, many of which we have seen before. Hence, it was vital to secure a win against them. This was not an easy round and lasted for more than 2 hours. Fortunately, we were able to beat them 3-1! We were all so exhausted but still had a match against Walford Anglican School. We put all our remaining energy into this game and in an hour came out with a clean sweep! It was a successful first day with Mac.Rob on 11/12, Sydney Girls High on 10/12, and Somerset College on 9/12.
On our final day, we were extremely nervous as we were up against Sydney Girls High, who was only trailing us by 1 point. We sat down and played good chess games before coming out ecstatic. Mac.Rob had beaten Sydney Girls High 4-0. We felt elated because we knew we were almost guaranteed first place! Our final round was against Merici College. We played our games carefully, ensuring no mistakes were made, and we were able to beat them 4-0!
With that, Mac.Rob won the Australian School Teams Chess Championships Secondary Girls division, becoming the only Victorian school to take home the grand trophy! We scored 19/20 and took home the prize for the highest score across all divisions. Additionally, Xin and Kathleen won their board prize with a perfect score of 5/5!
Of course, chess trophies weren’t our only prizes on this trip. From walking down to the beach and surpassing 10,000 steps each day, taking a swim to battle the sweltering Cairns weather, playing fun chess variations such as 3-way-transfer and Fischer random chess, to eating pizza and tacos under a miraculous lunar halo, making friends from all around Australia and celebrating Kathleen’s belated birthday with a much loved ice-cream cake, our greatest win of the week was growing closer as a team, brought together by the humble black and white, 64-square game of chess.
We would like to thank Ms. Pride for putting in enormous time and effort in organising this trip. Additionally, we would like to express our gratitude to everyone who sponsored us. Not only did Mac.Rob subsidise a large portion of our trip, friends, family, classmates, and ex-Mac.Robians were very generous in their donations. We would not have been able to attend if it was not for your generosity, so thank you! Finally, we were so fortunate to have Ms. Lionello and Mr. Schaffner accompany us on this trip. They are both kind, fun, and supportive, and made our trip an unforgettable experience! We are ecstatic with our achievement, and we are so so grateful to everyone for supporting us! We hope we can keep our winning streak alive in the following years and make everyone proud!
By Shalana P, Callista L-L, Kathleen H, Xin C, and Aparna M