This was held at Legacy House on Sunday, October 25th, and once more turned out to be one of our most popular events for the year, with 18 teams competing – exactly the same as last year (over 70 kids).

Jack South and myself were the Tournament Directors but we had help from a number of people, including Chris Blenkinsop, Mrs Bush, the Duke family, and others. Without this help, the event would have been very difficult to manage. As it was, the closure of many streets in the city, and the usual confusion about the makeup of the teams, saw us start nearly an hour late. Fortunately, we had expected a confusing start and we ended up finishing on time.

In order to give the young guys in C Grade a bit of protection, we decided to combine A & B Grades in a single round robin, and ran a 7 round swiss for C Grade. The top two teams in each grade then played off for the title.

As is common with WA tournaments, only a few days to go before the close of entries, we just had 4 teams entered, together with a number of promises. I had already ordered prizes for the first and second in each grade, intending to order more if the number of entries justified doing so. In the face of a potentially low entry, I did not do so – a decision that I regretted when we ended up with 18 teams. Anyway, we ended up presenting trophies and medals to the first two teams and a small consolation prize of $5 to each of the team members of the third placed teams.

The Independants and Seton A dominated the qualifying tournament with The Independants just finishing ahead by the odd point. The playoff was just as close but The Independants maintained their advantage to win A Grade. Both matches with Seton A were won by The Independants with the same score: 2½-1½. With the Williams sisters not playing this year, The Independants had a more cosmopolitan look.

In the battle to qualify for the B Grade final, Maccabi Blue seemed to be cruising until a 0-4 loss to The Victorians in the second last round of qualifying put them in some danger. However, they steadied and the same two teams faced off in the final, with Maccabi Blue turning the tables big time, winning 3-1. There was a tie for third between Carmel School and Seton B. Since there was a small prize at stake for third (and I only had eight $5 notes) we decided to have a playoff for third, which was won by Seton B 3½-½.

The White Magic team dominated C Grade, until the last couple of rounds where they gave a little ground. However, they easily qualified first for the final. The battle for the other qualifying place was decided in round 6, when the Basso Badgers defeated The Kings 3-1 to just sneak ahead by half a point. The playoff was drawn 2-2 but White Magic won by virtue of winning the qualifying tournament.

All in all, everyone seemed to have a good time, and some people were already talking about what would happen next year!

Report by Haydn Barber

Prize Winners

A-Grade:	1st:	The Independants 	
                        (Ryan Sam, William Williams, Darby Thurtell, George Carolin-Unkovich)		
		2nd: 	Seton A (Seton Catholic College)
			(Chris Boni, Stephen Djatmiko, Taiga Yano, Dane Pepper)

B-Grade:	1st:	Maccabi Blue (Maccabi Chess Club)
			(Andrew Savory, Indira Savory, Ari Silberstein, Zalman Goldblatt, Lynton Pearson)
		2nd:	The Victorians (Guildford Grammar School)	
			(Brandon Zubek, Matthew Duke, Sam Clements, Perry Yang) 
		3rd:	Seton B (Seton Catholic College)
			(Peter Liebeck, Matt Connors, Mitch Foley, Chas Crowe)	 

C-Grade:	1st:	White Magic (Illawarra Primary School)
			(Tristan Tan, Daniel Yeung, Joshua Bush, Benjamin Chan)
		2nd:	Basso Badgers (Bassendean Primary School)
			(Luther Gordon, Jordan Harrison, Marcus Caravella, Angus Proudfoot)
		3rd:	The Kings (Huntingdale Chess Club)
			(Charlton Rebello, Ignatius Yap, Sagar Badve, Alan Greenwood)