Australian Junior Championships Report


Cameron McGowan is the 2020 Australian Junior Champion.

The Australian Junior Chess Championships have concluded for 2020. In total, there were 362 players in the main events, 144 players in the Blitz and 102 Juniors competed in the problem solving.

Under 18 Open:
1st – Cameron McGowan (NSW)
2nd – Michael Ostapenko (QLD)
3rd – Sravan Renjith (QLD)

Under 16 Open:
1st – Ryder Testolin (VIC)
2nd – James Spencer (NSW)
3rd – Daniel Melamed (NSW)

Under 14 Open:
1st – Alexavier Ly-Liu (QLD)
2nd – Yihe (Rebo) Fu (WA)
3rd – Seth Peramunetellike (NSW)

Under 12 Open:
1st – Jayden Ooi (QLD)
2nd – Archit Kannan (VIC)
3rd – Arthur Gao (VIC)

Under 10 Open:
1st – Jayden Ooi (QLD) via play-off
2nd – Zerui Xing (QLD)
3rd – Joel Leong (QLD)

Under 8 Open:
1st – Lachlan Wang (QLD)
2nd – Harvey Zhu (QLD)
3rd – Calen Tang (QLD)

Under 12 – 18 Girls was a combined tournament
with the following trophies awarded.

Under 18 Girls:
1st – Lillian Lu (VIC)
2nd – Emily Lin (VIC)
3rd – Eva Ge (NSW)

Under 16 Girls:
1st – Athena Hathiramani (ACT) (2nd overall)
2nd – Myiesha Maunders (VIC)
3rd – Jennifer Morrison (VIC)

Under 14 Girls:
1st – Elizaveta Gratchev (QLD)
(via play-off with Athena-Malar Retnaraja)
2nd – Ekaterina Gratchev (QLD)
3rd – Dhwani Patel (NSW)

Under 12 Girls:
1st – Athena-Malar Retnaraja (SA)
(after play-offwith Elizaveta Gratchev)
2nd – Damaris Augustine (VIC)
3rd – Ethena Qiang (QLD)

Under 10 Girls:
1st – Darline Augustine (VIC) (via play-off)
2nd – Chanya Rupasinghe (NSW)
3rd – Emily Zhang

Under 8 Girls:
1st – Vidushi Dissanayake (VIC)
2nd – Xintong Zhang (QLD)
3rd – Manyata Sindhi (VIC)

Full standings and cross-tables are available at AJCC-2020 Results

Fun CAQ Teams of 6 Chess Day

It was another epic day of Team Chess in more ways than one on Sunday December 15 in the spacious hall of St Joseph’s Primary School in Bracken Ridge. When the third seeded team Epic Epicness defeated Gold Coast Team 1, the second seeds, by 5.5 to 0.5, a buzz went round the room. What was in the flowers around their necks, perhaps a performance enhancing perfume? When they later drew their match 3 all with the Number 1 seeds Bullwinkle Team 1, victory seemed assured. However, Redcliffe Team 1 looked a possible giant killer in the final round when they looked to be doing quite well on at least 3 of the six boards. But Charles Tsai came back from the dead against Mark C Stokes and the other close games fell Epic Epicness’ way and a very deserved Division 1 Teams of 6 Queensland Championship was theirs for the first time by just 1 match point! Division 2 was also decided by 1 match point, with Bullwinkle 3 taking it out in a very close contest. The day was full of fun and very well run by Arbiter Max Kershaw, with up to date Team Match points and individual board score points on display for one and all from round 1 to round 9! Max certainly deserved the big round of applause he received from all 60 players at the prize giving ceremony! But Tyson Walker and Epic Epicness deserve the biggest applause for an outstanding, epic performance, winning 48 games, drawing 3 games and losing just 3 games on the day! What was in those flowers????

The 10 teams entered are:

Bullwinkle 1 (average rating for the 6 boards is 2120)
Gold Coast 1 (2064)
Excessive Epicness (2012)
Bullwinkle 2 (1798)
Redcliffe 1 (1507)
Logan-Redlands (1452)
Bullwinkle 3 (1208)
Gold Coast 2 (1123)
All Juniors (1095)
Redcliffe 2 (1037)

It is a full round robin, with all play all. There are two divisions being contested for both the Open and a divisional winner as well as individual board prizes.

Team winners on the day were:

Division 1.
1st Excessive Epicness 1 on 17 match points.
2nd Gold Coast 1 on 16mps.
3rd Bullwinkle 1 on 15 mps.

The Excessive Epicness team have been runners up in this event for the past few years and were worthy winners this year. The team members were: Board 1 Eliot Soo-Burrows; 2 Hughston Parle; 3 Sravan Renjith; 4 Charles Tsai; 5 Tyson Walker and 6 Andrew Mather. Out of the 54 games that they contested they only lost 3 and drew 3.

Division 2 winners were:
1st Bullwinkle 3 on 7 mps.
=2nd were Logan-Redlands and All Juniors on 6mps.

The Bullwinkle 3 team members were Board 1 Jayden Ooi; 2 Michael D’Arcy; 3 Jason Chan; 4 Regina Edwards; 5 Keon Poon and 6 Keenan Poon.