Matthew Clarke retains Under 18 Title

Mikaere Pora retains Under 12 Title

Matthew Clarke of Newcastle, aged 15, has again retained his NSW Country Junior Championship title by winning the Under 18 finals with a clean score of 5/5. Vincent Qiang of Wollongong was second to Matthew for the third successive year.

The Under 12 Championship was won by Mikaere Pora of the Central Coast with a score of 9/10, the same score with which he won this event last year. Second was Eamonn Fitzgerald of Dubbo with a score of 8/10

For full results click on "Results" in the menu at left.

This year's series of Primary Schools One-Day Tournaments consisted of 30 district tournaments plus finals. Fifty-four schools took part in the NSW finals, including  schools from country areas such as Albury, Armidale, Denman, Deniliquin, Dubbo, Lake Wyangan, Newcastle, Millthorpe, Port Macquarie, Spring Ridge and Wollongong, as well as several teams from the Blue Mountains and the Central Coast. Neutral Bay Public School won the finals with a large margin of four points ahead of its nearest rivals, St Ives North Public School and North Rocks Public School.

For detailed results click on "Schools" (at left) and then on "Results" under the heading "Primary Schools One-Day Tournaments".

The state-wide Primary Schools Competition (for teams of four players), which commenced in second term, has concluded. Over the last few months the 34 zone winners participated in region finals and the 10 region winners then took part in the inter-region finals to determine the country and metropolitan champions, which then played each other in the NSW final. In the Metropolitan final Sydney Grammar School St Ives Preparatory narrowly defeated Strathfield South Public School while in the the Country final Wollongong Public School defeated Newcastle Grammar School on tie-break. Wollongong then played the Metropolitan champions for the NSW Primary Schools title and in this match Sydney Grammar St Ives was victorious. Congratulations to the winners and also to all the other finalists for their achievement in reaching the finals. For full details click on "Schools" in the menu at left, then on the Primary Schools Competition's "Draw & Results" and then on "Finals".

Sydney Grammar St Ives will represent NSW in the Primary Open Division of the Australian Schools Teams Championships to be held in Adelaide on 1-2 December. In the Primary Girls Division NSW will be represented Neutral Bay Public School, which defeated Hobartville Public School, Lindfield Public School and Summer Hill Public School in a round-robin qualifying playoff.

Smiths Hill High School from the South Coast Region has won this year's Country Secondary Schools Competition, retaining the Country Secondary Schools title which the school won last year.  Merewether High School from the Hunter Region repeated its second place of last year.

For full details click on "Schools" in the left-hand column and then look under the heading "Country Secondary Schools Competition".

NSW Country Junior Champion Matthew Clarke has won the City of Sydney Junior (Under 18) Championship, a full point ahead of Marco Zheng and last year's winner Sterling Bayaca.

The Under 15 division was won by James Spencer, playing in only his second NSWJCL tournament. He scored 7/8 (conceding two draws) and finished half a point ahead of NSW Under 12 Champion Toby Huey.

Two players, Sayum Rupasinghe and Joshua Li, tied for first in the Under 12 division, each scoring 9/11. A playoff for the title will be held.

The three divisions attracted a total of 96 players.

For full scores click on "Results" in the left-hand column.

The Sydney Spring One-Day Tournament ended in a tie for first place between 14-year-old Aidan Odenthal and 17-year-old Peter Boylan, who each scored 8 points out of 9.

Aidan Odenthal did even better in the Sydney Spring Two-Day Tournament, winning on his own with a score of 9.5 out of 11.

Mittun Sudhahar has won the Under 18 division of the Orange Spring Tournament with a clean score of 8/8, 1.5 points ahead of Oliver Drew. In the Under 12 division Eamonn Fitzgerald and Chamathsara Mendis tied for first place with 7/7. As the Orange Spring Tournaments are the Western qualifying event for the NSW Country Junior Championships these four players have qualified for the finals (two in each of the Under 18 and Under 12 divisions).

For detailed results click on "Results" in the left-hand menu.

The NSW Girls Under 18 Championship has been won by 12-year-old Dhwani Patel, last year's NSW Girls Under 12 champion. She won every game and finished one and a half points ahead of 14-year-old Anousheh Moonen.

Katherine Pan won the Girls Under 12 Championship with a score of 11/11, 3.5 points ahead of Chelsea Huey and Chanya Rupasinghe, who shared second place. Katherine's previous claim to fame was winning the Australian Girls Under 8 Championship in 2016.

For full scores click on "Results" in the left-hand column.

As the NSW Secondary Schools Competition is in three separate school-year-based grades and does not produce an overall secondary schools winner (with players from any secondary year) a separate qualification playoff is held to determine the Secondary Open team and the Secondary Girls team to represent NSW in the Australian Schools Teams Championships (ASTC) to be held in Adelaide in December. Likewise a qualification playoff is necessary to determine the Primary Girls team to represent NSW as the NSW Primary Schools Competition does not produce an overall girls winner.

The three qualification playoffs have been held and the results were as follows:

Secondary Open:  1st Knox Grammar School 7.5/12, 2nd Sydney Grammar School 7/12, 3rd Sydney Boys School 6/12, North Sydney Boys High 3.5/12

Secondary Girls: 1st James Ruse Agricultural High School 5, 2nd Abbotsleigh 3

Primary Girls:  1st Neutral Bay Public School 10/12, 2nd Hobartville Public School 6/12, 3rd Summer Hill Public School 4.5/12, 4th Lindfield Public School 3.5/12

Knox Grammar School, James Ruse Agricultural High School and Neutral Bay Public School will therefore represent NSW in the ASTC, together with the winner of the NSW Primary Schools Competition, which should be completed in November.

The 2018 Metropolitan Secondary Schools Teams  Competition, which commenced at the beginning of second term, has concluded. The winners of the three grades were as follows:

Senior Grade (Years 11-12): Sydney Technical High School
Intermediate Grade (Years 9-10):  Sydney Boys High School
Junior Grade (Years 7-8): Sydney Boys High School

A total of 294 teams from 86 schools took part in the competition, a significant increase on recent years. The teams were divided into four regions and then into divisions of approximately 8 teams. Division winners qualified for knock-out region finals, the winners of which progressed to the inter-region finals in each grade. For full details click on "Schools" in the menu at left.

James Ruse Agricultural High School has won Open Division of the Secondary Schools One-Day Tournament and with it the Terrey Shaw Shield. This was the school's sixth victory in this event in seven years, but this time it was achieved only by a narrow tie-break from North Sydney Boys High School (which won in 2016, also on tie-break).

Sydney Boys High School won the Junior Division (Year 7-9), and also shared second place (with Sydney Grammar).

A total of 42 teams from 19 schools participated, the furthest away being Calderwood Christian School from Albion Park (south of Wollongong).

For full scores click on "Schools" in the menu in the left-hand column.

Cameron McGowan wins Under 18 title

Jack Keating wins Under 18 Reserves Tournament
Toby Huey wins Under 12 title

Fifteen-year-old Cameron McGowan has won the NSW Junior (Under 18) Championship by a large margin of one and a half points ahead of Gordon Yang in second place.

The Under 18 Reserves Tournament was won by fourteen-year-old Jack Keating, who finished half a point ahead of eleven-year-old Marco Zheng (winner of last year's Under 12 title).

Toby Huey won the Under 12 title by half a point from Jason Pan.

Full details may be found by clicking on "Results" in the menu at left.

Kerry Lin has repeated his Autumn One-Day success by winning the Sydney Winter One-Day Tournament, half a point ahead of veteran Gordon Yang and relative newcomer Ronen Bhaumik.

Gordon Yang almost repeated his Autumn Two-Day success by winning the Sydney Winter Two-Day Tournament – almost because this time he had to be content with sharing first place with Linus Cooper and Kerry Lin.

Several girls aged under 12 featured in the Orange Winter Tournament. These included the winner, Sarayu Prakashbabu, who scored 7 out of 8, and Chamathsara Mendis, who finished on 6 out of 8, and Harriet Ringbauer, another point below.

For detailed results click on "Results" in the left-hand menu.

The Autumn-Winter issue of the NSWJCL magazine Junior Chess has been posted to members and schools. For the first time it does not contain a list of ratings (other than the "Best" lists). This is because ratings are now available online – see "Ratings" in the menu at left. With the main inter-schools competitions now being rated (starting with most of last year's results) there has been a large increase in the number of rated players – too many to list in the magazine.

The ACF is conducting selections to send one man, one woman, one Senior (Above-60), one Junior Girl (Under-20), one Junior Open (Under-20) player and one open and girl entries each in under-8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 as official entrants.

If you are interested in applying please see HERE.

Metropolitan Secondary Schools Competition: The draws for Met East, Met North and Met West Regions are now available. The draw for Met South-West Region will be available soon.

Primary Schools Competition: The draws for Met East and Met North Regions are now available. The draws for other regions will be added progressively over the next few days.

The draws may be found by clicking on "Schools" in the main menu (left).

Fifteen-year-old Kerry Lin has won the Sydney Autumn One-Day Tournament, half a point ahead of Linus Cooper. A large field of 181 players took part.

Gordon Yang triumphed in the Sydney Autumn Two-Day Tournament, winning by half a point from Kerry Lin, Linus Cooper and Cameron McGowan.

The Orange Autumn One-Day Tournament was convincingly won by James Joseph, who scored 8 out of 8 and finished two full points ahead of his nearest rivals.

For detailed results click on "Results" in the left-hand menu.

(26 Jan 2018):

Summer Tournaments 2018

Matthew Clarke wins Sydney Summer Three-Day Tournament
Linus Cooper wins Sydney Summer One-Day Tournament
Matthew Clarke wins Sydney Summer Two-Day Tournament
Kerwin Ma wins Orange Summer One-Day Tournament

After finishing 2017 on a high note by winning the NSW Country Junior Championship with a clean score, Matthew Clarke started the new year in similar style by winning the Sydney Summer Three-Day Tournament with an unblemished score, 9 out of 9. In second place was Sterling Bayaca with a score of 8 out of 9.  The tournament attracted 56 players, which was fewer than usual as many of our players are competing in the Australian Championships (including Reserves and Classic tournaments) which are taking place in North Sydney.

Linus Cooper added to he already long list of tournament successes by winning the Sydney Summer One-Day Tournament with a clean score (8 out of 8). Hamish Dawson achieved his best tournament to date by coming clear second with a score of 7 points.
In the Sydney Summer Two-Day Tournament Matthew Clarke repeated his Three-Day success by winning every game. He finished a point and a half ahead of Cameron McGowan.

Twins Kerwin Ma and Matthew Ko captured the top two places in the Orange Summer One-Day Tournament. Kerwin won all his games and Matthew won all except against his brother.

For detailed results click on "Results" in the left-hand menu.

The highlight for NSW of the Australian Junior Championships, which have just concluded in Melbourne, was Amanda Cheng's win of the Australian Girls Under 16 title.

Other highly placed NSW players were Aiden Wen (2nd in the Open Under 8), Chanya Rupasinghe (2nd in the Girls Under 8) and Anthony Fikh (2nd in the Open Under 16, after a playoff for 1st place).

NSW players captured four titles in the subsidiary events – Annabel Li (Girls Under 8 Lightning), Sayum Rupasinghe (Open Under 10 Lightning ), Annabel Li (Girls Under 8 Problem Solving) and Gordon Yang (Open Under 16 Problem Solving).

For details, including scores, see the Australian Junior Championships link (at top right) or use the direct link https://sites.google.com/view/ajcc2018/news/pairingsresults.