École Monseigneur Blais Morand played host to a student chess tournament Feb. 12.
Sixteen student chess players from four different schools in the Battlefords participated. The students played in threesections, according to their grade level, and played from four to as many as seven games.
EMBM principal, Theo Masich, offered the use of his school for the tournament, and given the fairly small number of players, the children ended up playing in the school's library. In between games, some of the players enjoyed reading library books.
The youngest players were in a section comprised of five Grade 3 students and one Grade 2 student. After five rounds of play, Noa Kolosnjaji and Nazar Parkhomenko were tied with four and a half points.
In a playoff to determine the section winner, Noa prevailed to claim first place. Noa had home court advantage as he participates in the EMBM chess club, which meets in the school's library.
Nazar, a new immigrant to Canada from Ukraine, playedeven though he currently speaks only a few words of English.
The lone grade two player, Dmitri Masich, came third in the section, losing only to Nazar and Noa.
Due to a few last minute cancellations, the Grade 4 and 5 players competed against one another in one large section. Skyler York, another EMBM student, scored five and a half out of six to claim first place. Ashlyn Elmer, a Grade 4 student from Bready School, placedclear second in the section with her only loss being to Skyler. Zachary York, a Grade 7 student at Heritage Christian School, won the Grade 6 to 8 section, narrowly defeating two Bready students.
The tournament was designed to give students who have beenparticipating at chess clubs in local schools a chance to see how much chess they have mastered. It was also a qualification tournament for the Provincial Chess Challenge championship. A number of students from this tournament will be invited to participate in provincials, where the Saskatchewan Chess team is selected. Team Saskatchewan will be travelling to the National Chess Challenge in Halifax, N.S. over the long weekend in May.
The tournament was a fine example of how chess can be played and enjoyed by either gender, as 50 per centof the players were girls.
Don MacKinnon, the tournament organizer andfather of national master Keith MacKinnon, who graduated from John Paul II in2011, (who was a nine timeprovincial chess championand five time runner-up at the National Chess Challenge), pointed out to a number of players after the tournament thatliving in a smaller community does not stop a player from excelling at chess, if the desire to succeed is present.
Internet chess isnow so widely available a player can play chess anytime, anywhere, with the use of a computer.
MacKinnon says he hopes to see more players from the Battlefords play at the provincial and even national level. Time will tell if the interest in chess that was visible at the recent tournamentwill take some of these young playersto a national stage.
