It was an amazing opportunity to go to Rotorua for the Chess Nationals team and individual tournaments on 22 – 23 October, which was held at Lynmore Primary School, Rotorua.
Sasandu Kiwulegedara, Alex Samson and Albert Cameron travelled to Rotorua and the organizers applauded the JHC team for coming from Southland. Our JHC team came 7th place from all the schools in New Zealand. Sasandu was able to beat a Junior Master (JM) which was amazing at the tournament.
On the 23rd of October Sasandu and Alex attended the individual tournament and gave a good fight. There were 200 players in the tournament. Alex managed to get into the top 20 while Sasandu managed to get into the top 10 in New Zealand for under 13’s.
We all had great fun, a lot of challenging opponents and tough games but we did our very best. We were very proud as we managed to get some good wins for JHC. We would like to thank Mrs Cochrane who supported us from the beginning and she managed to do a fundraiser to cover the cost for the entry fees of our team by selling hot chips. Also, thank you to
Ms Robertson and all the other people who helped us to enter for these Nationals tournaments.
By Sasandu Kiwulegedara
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