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Karratha chess players set to check out Melbourne |
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Written by Orla Doyle
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 Jackson Williams, year 11 It’s state against state, school against school and player against player – it’s the finals of the largest youth chess competition in the country.
 Jayre, year 11
Players from all over the country will converge at Monash University’s Clayton Campus to compete for national titles.
For the first time the competition will also have an international flavour, with students from New Zealand travelling to Victoria to challenge the Aussies for the title.
This year more than 10,000 children from grades one to twelve have taken part in the competition nationally, a figure that hasn’t stopped growing since the competition began in 2002.
Chess guru, former chess champion and founder of the Chess Kids competition David Cordover said that the national finals represented the cream of the chess crop, with players having qualified through regional and state finals earlier in the year.
“The power of chess is that it has no boundaries and this is something we see with the diversity of children that converge in Melbourne for the national finals,” said Mr Cordover.
“When two children sit opposite each other - be it girl versus boy, private school student versus public school student, English speaking versus non-English speaking, tall versus short - the platform they are competing on is completely level and it all comes down to strategy.”
This year 21 students from St Luke’s College will be representing the Pilbara.
Jacky Brown is the chess coordinator at St Luke’s College.
“All the students are so excited to have this opportunity, for some students they have never travelled outside the Pilbara or the state, so to head over to Melbourne and represent their school is a fantastic opportunity ” she says.
During term 3 this year the school held a whole school chess competition.
120 students participated, from that the team of 21 players were selected to head to Melbourne.
There are four teams representing St Luke’s. Two boys teams and two girls teams.
A big thanks goes to all the sponsors and supporters who made the trip possible. Luke Nicholson, year 11 |
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