These two events were combined this year because the Secondary Interschool, originally scheduled for June, had to be re-scheduled. Any teams wishing to compete for the Secondary Interschool A-Grade had to play in the Junior Teams A-Grade. Any Secondary Interschool B-Grade and C-Grade teams had to play in the Junior Teams B-Grade. The Junior Teams C-Grade was reserved for Primary School kids, though a number of them competed in higher grades. I hope that all makes some kind of sense.

The event was held at Mt Lawley Senior High. This is a nice venue, but resources were stretched to the limit to cope with the 20 teams playing – a slight increase on last year. This is the second Junior competition in succession that has had 80 kids competing, which is very pleasing.

Because of illness, I was anchored to the computer all day, and Jack South had the unenviable job of getting all the players organized and under control. Although he had some assistance from parents and teachers, it was still a mighty job. Despite his efforts, the competition could best be described as chaotic.

Unusually, and happily, we were able to keep the three Grades separate this time.

A-Grade

With only 4 teams wishing to contest A-Grade, we ran a double round robin – where every team played every other team twice. The Independants, with the same team as last year, completely dominated this event, just drawing the one match with Guildford Grammar School. The Independants have dominated this division since it began.

Second place, and the right to represent WA in the Australian Schools Championship, went right down to the last match, between Perth Modern School and Guildford. Perth Modern won this match by the narrowest possible margin, 2½ - 1½.

The All-Stars team showed great courage in playing in A-Grade, despite knowing just how hard it would be.

B-Grade

With 6 teams, this Grade was run as a single round robin. It came down to the last round – not engineered by the management! Maccabi Blue and Fianchetto had both drawn with Surprise Goose and defeated all of the other teams. The only difference in their scores was that Maccabi had picked up an extra ½ point against Reo Knights, which meant that they only needed to draw their match with Fianchetto, which is exactly what they did. This is the second year in a row that Maccabi Blue has won B-Grade.

Surprise Goose, easily held on to third place (despite losing to All Saints) because of their drawn matches with the top two teams. All Saints College and Rehoboth Christian College took home the Secondary Interschool B-Grade and C-Grade prizes.

C-Grade

The C-Grade competition was dominated by Adidas, Maccabi White and Black Magic. Indeed, before the last round, there was only ½ a point between the three teams! Adidas won their last match 4-0 and just did enough to win. The teams from Team CCGS (ChristChurch Grammar) and The Baysie Masters (Bayswater Primary) finished in the dreaded fourth position.

Despite the chaos, everyone seemed to have a good time, and we hope its success will be repeated in 2011.

Report by Haydn Barber

Prize Winners

Junior Teams

A-Grade:	1st:	The Independants 	
			(Ryan Sam, William Williams, George Carolin-Unkovich, Darby Thurtell)		
		2nd: 	Perth Modern School
			(Neville Shah, Michael Xie, Joseph Thompson, Angel Yu)
		3rd:	Guildford Grammar School
			(Alexander Ridley, Matthew Duke, Joshua Bouwman, Yash Shitole (late substitute))

B-Grade:	1st:	Maccabi Blue (Maccabi Chess Club)
			(Andrew Savory, Alex Weeda, Indira Savory, Nicholas Scott)
		2nd:	Fianchetto,	
			(Aston Taminjah, Varun Mukhedkar, Sean Vettoor, Abhinav Veettil) 
		3rd:	Surprise Goose (Huntingdale Junior Chess Club)
			(Michael Lee, David Stebbins, Zachary Vowles, Charlton Rebello)	 

C-Grade:	1st:	Adidas (Huntingdale Junior Chess Club)
			(Sagar Badve, Ignatius Yap, Amul Dharmapuri, Jadon Chia)
		2nd:	Maccabi White (Maccabi Chess Club)
			(Asher Myerson, Lewis Weeda, Gavin Tay, Nathan Scott)
		3rd:	White Magic (Illawarra Primary School)
			(Tristan Tan, Benjamin Chan, Timothy Burton, Victoria Burton)

Secondary Interschool

A-Grade:	1st: 	Perth Modern School
			(Neville Shah, Michael Xie, Joseph Thompson, Angel Yu)
		2nd:	Guildford Grammar School
			(Alexander Ridley, Matthew Duke, Joshua Bouwman, Yash Shitole (late substitute))

B-Grade:	1st:	All Saints (All Saints College)
			(Adam Kelly, Benjamin Chia, Alister de Wind, George Phipps)
		2nd:	Reo Knights (Rehoboth Christian College)	
			(Ryan Fleming, Luke Ossevort, Othneil Luntungan, Leon Noppers) 
		
C-Grade:	1st:	Reo All-Stars (Rehoboth Christian College)
			(Eli Joye, Daniel Kuilenburg, Eli Greaves, Eric Hyun)