by Patrick Brophy, Evan Gilchrist and James Goulding
February 2017
At the start of this year, our chess teacher, Ms. Killeen entered us into a chess tournament in Kildare. We were put into a group which consisted of schools from Straffan, St. David’s and Staplestown. Our first match was against Straffan, who are known for their chess.
Early in December, we travelled to Straffan to play them.
When we arrived in their school hall they had their chess boards ready and were ready to play. Most of the games were for fun, but four were competitive. The competitive games were between the top four players from each school. Our top four were Evan, Patrick, T.J and James. We beat Straffan 4-0, we were so happy and shocked.
Our next game was against Staplestown who we beat 3-1 which was our only loss of the group stage. It was also our only home game.
And then our last game was against St. David’s N.S where we won 3 ½ to ½. Because we won that match we finished top of our group and progressed to the chess trophy which was on St. Valentine’s Day.
On 14th February, we went to Kildare town to play in the finals. Our first game was against the team from Kildare Town. We drew the match 2-2 but unfortunately we lost out of scoring difference. It was a great experience though.
Later we played in pairs against an Irish chess master. He was playing 16 games at the same time. It was great fun.
Thanks to Ms. Killeen for entering us in the competition and for her help!