Super 8 Chess
On Friday and Saturday Palmerston North Boys’ High School hosted the annual Super 8 Chess Tournament in the library. We had five of the Super 8 schools compete: Napier Boys’ High School, Hamilton Boys’ High School, New Plymouth Boys’ High School, Tauranga Boys’ College and Palmerston North Boys’ High School. Due to unforeseen circumstances, both Gisborne Boys’ High and Hastings Boys’ High had to withdraw their teams on the day before the competition started. As a result of the reshuffling, we entered an A and a B team to even the draws.
Our A team members consisted of: Sol Ross, Matthew Clayton, Martin Joseph and Leon Nie, and our B team members consisted of: Keegan Leask, Tom Hannan, Alistair Hardie and Paul Kaiser.
All players found themselves matched with strong competition and some very passionate and intense play ensued. At the conclusion of Friday, round three of the competition, our A team and Hamilton Boys’ High School co-led the scoreboard with head to head match and game points.
Saturday’s play saw the completion of rounds four and five, and again some intricate play at hand. However, despite the strong competition, Palmerston North Boys’ High School successfully retained their Super 8 Chess winning title and trophy for the second year in a row. Individual results from this competition saw Martin Joseph awarded the silver medal for second best overall player and a certificate for most valuable player of the Palmerston North Boys’ High School A team. Leon Nie was awarded the bronze medal for third best overall player. Tom Hannan was awarded a certificate for the most valuable player of the Palmerston North Boys’ High School B team.
To conclude the competition, all players competed in a fun ‘Blitz’ tournament. This resulted in a tie for first place with Sol Ross from the Palmerston North Boys’ High School A team and Hamilton Boys’ High School’s strongest player, Seb Ayson-Macfarlane.
Overall, a very successful event which would not have taken place without the time and effort of Mark Noble and the Manawatu Knights Chess Club. Also, our acknowledgement goes out to our players who ensured that our teams were the strongest they could be, and conducted themselves with impeccable sportsmanship throughout the duration of the event. Well done gents!
