September 29th-30th 2018 – Interschools National Finals, Mt Maunganui.
Two hundred and fifty students and at least 80 anxious parents and teachers travelled to Mount Maunganui for NZCF’s annual NZ Interschool Chess Finals on 29th and 30th September. The 60 school teams had all won their regional tournaments or been awarded one of a handful of “wildcard” spots. The finals were organised and run by at Mt Maunganui College by Bob and Viv Smith, with the help of members of the Mount Chess Club.
Seedings – always a bit of a guess at school level – proved remarkably accurate in the secondary and primary championships, with top seeds Macleans College and Pinehurst School (both from Auckland) convincing winners.
But seventh seeds Berkley Middle School (Hamilton) pulled off an upset in the intermediate division, finishing ahead of more fancied rivals.
The medal winning schools and team compositions were:
Primary
1st Pinehurst School Felix Xie, Kenny Zhang, Ryan Fan, Allen Weng, Nicholas Xu
2nd Willow Park School Matthew Chen, Emma Zhuang, Eddie Kim, Chenchen Wang, Wyatt Liu
3rd Eastern Hutt School Paul He, Ben Guo, Zac Li, Shaasthin Nithyananthan
Intermediate
1st Berkley Middle School Lasen Silva, Aidan Morgan, Daniel Loy, Cam Sundararaj
2nd Murrays Bay Int Andrew Li, Allen Li, Nathan Jin, Andy Song
3rd Mt Roskill Int Nico McKinlay, Renae Ghadiali, Saasha Ghadiali, Adam Ali, Saahir Saheb
Secondary
1st Macleans College Richard Jiang, Terry Shen, Judd Zhan, Kevin Guan, Oliver Dai
2nd Auckland Grammar Allen Fan, Aaron Wang, James Liu, Nicholas Huang
3rd King’s College Darrick Pan, Brian Qi, Ryan Nguyen, Fia Fa’afuhia
Hamilton Chess Club 