Page 53 - Southwell School Year Book 2019
P. 53
CHESS
2019 was another good year for chess.
There were a record number of pupils successfully completing their pawn, knight, bishop and rook badges. What was particularly pleasing was the pupils were of all ages.
Chess Club on a Tuesday and Thursday lunchtimes has also increased in popularity. We now use two rooms to accommodate all the players. What is impressive is to hear players being critiqued on their opening moves by their peers. The advantages and disadvantages of the Sicilian, French and Ruy Lopez openings are robustly proposed and defended.
The Southwell Teams did very well in all the local tournaments that they entered with the Junior and Senior teams placing first. In the Waikato Championships the Junior and Senior teams came first and went on down to Palmerston North to represent the Waikato in the Nationals. The senior team of Isaac Li, Stanley Lin, Rachael Ronowicz and Daniel Shen came 11th out of 22 schools while the Junior team of Alex Ko, Ryan Wang, Adi Manda and Leyu Zeng came 18th out of 22 schools.
At the Power Zone Nationals held in Christchurch, Rachael Ronowicz won the trophy for Best Girl in New Zealand, and Kaedan Govender won the trophy for Best Junior in New Zealand.
Chess at Southwell is the strongest it has ever been and looks to grow stronger next year as more pupils take up playing the game. I would like to thank Mrs Aparna Manda for looking after the Junior team this year. Your help was invaluable.
Per Aspera ad Astrum
Mark Webb TIC Chess
CHESS
Back Row: 2nd Row: Front Row: Absent:
Senior Chess team
Junior Chess team
Stanley Lin, Jonathan Crowther, Jerry Zou, Jonathan Jiang, Michael Crowther
Mrs A Manda (Manager), Srikar Jandhyala, Anurag Manda, Isaac Li, Daniel Shen, Alex Ko, Ryan Wang, Mr M Webb (Coach) Leyu Zeng, Kaedan Govender, Aditya Manda, Rachael Ronowicz, Leon Wu, Andrey Harker, Leon Lee
Ben Edwards, Sam Edwards, Jerry Lan, Ben Mitchell, Daniel Zhou
Southwell School Yearbook 2019
51