Dominance undiminished

Press, 3 September 1986, Page 36

Dominance undiminished

It can be of little cheer to other schools that the Christchurch Boys’ High School chess team which comprehensively won “The Press” A grade title recently will most likely stay intact for next year. The victory by Boys’ High was its tenth in the IS years of the annual tournament, and it was also one of the most decisive. Its only setback was in the preliminary rounds, when it was held to a draw by the fivetimes champion, Shirley.

In the round-robin play-off, Christchurch Boys’ left -no room for error as it swept aside Ashburton, Shirley, 5-1, and Christ’s College, 5-1. From a possible 48 individual games, Christchurch claimed

Christchurch had three members of last year’s

successful side back, Andrew Hartshorn moving to the top board, and Austin Sharp and Chris Hartshorn, both of whom made limited appearances on the bottom boards in 1985, shifting up to the second and fourth positions, respectively.

Philip Morton, who won seven of his games on the lower boards for Christchurch B last season, was slotted into No. 3 and two youthful newcomers, Jamie Kirk and James Blake, played boards five and six. A total team effort gave Christchurch its victory. There were no weaknesses as Hartshorn and Blake both scored five wins and a half, performances surpassed by Morton, Chris Hartshorn and Kirk who, collectively, won 29 and

drew two of their 24 games. Sharp, the only loser on the final night, compiled four wins and one half.

The other three A grade teams in the final, Shirley, Ashburton and Christ’s College, all had individuals who did especially well, but they were without the depth of Christchurch.

Rene de Visser (board two) and Paul Baylis (board three or four) both won six games for Shirley and Brendan Wright won five, mainly on board five.

Ashburton was well served on board one by David Bean, who was third equal in this year’s , Canterbury schoolpupils’ ' tournament. His steady play resulted in only two losses, although most of

his games ended in draws. Peter Lynn’s five wins on board two were valuable and Robert Lynn’s thoughtful play on board four gave him six wins. Howard Grazier also finished with a record better than 59 per cent

. Christ’s College did not play as well in the round-robin final as it did in the preliminary rounds. Of the players who competed in all eight rounds, three finished with the same record of four wins, four losses. They were Edward Coxon (board two), Chris Newscn (board three and four) and Chris Atkinson, who was promoted from the bottom board to board four on the strength of his excellent form in the early part of the tournament.