Online Teams Nationals 2020 Report

The weekend of 24/25 October 2020 comprised of two events open to Juniors. 

On Saturday 24 October we held the Teams National finals in both onsite and online formats. And on Sunday 25 October, we held the Champions Trophy also in onsite and online formats. This report is a summary of the Online Teams Nationals. You can view other reports below...

View the Onsite Team Nationals report

View the Online Champions Trophy report

View the Onsite Champions Trophy report

INTRODUCTION

The Teams Nationals is a team event where players participate individually but their top 4 scores are summed together to form a score for their school team. The COVID pandemic not only caused people financial hardship but also created concern for the safety of people when attending events. To address these issues, we decided to hold the Teams Nationals in an online format for the first time. Fortunately the COVID situation in Auckland had become stable with very few community transmissions, so we felt confident enough to run the onsite event as well.

We had a total of 185 players participate in the online event from 38 school teams. This was a decent turnout given just four weeks earlier the event didn't even exist!

Schools from right across the country were represented from Auckland to Cromwell and Wanaka in the south. We didn't have any teams for Northland this year in the online event. You can view this cool map showing all the school's that competed this year.

To qualify for the Teams Nationals, schools have to win the local regional event. Chess Power runs qualifier regional events in 30 cities and towns across New Zealand in Term 2 and Term 3 each year.

The event was held online using Zoom technology and our games server, Tornelo. Tornelo was recently updated to support online events when COVID struck and it was up to the task!

We did have a number of challenges with players getting connected but we expected this and ran a number of online practice events leading up to Nationals. In addition we had extra staff in the morning to support getting people connected to Zoom and ready to play on Tornelo.
With an online event, it isn't that easy to pull together a photo collage of the event. Once you receive your certificates, medals and trophies, please send in your photos to events@chesspower.co.nz and we will add your photos to this report!
We did have a couple of teams send in their photos without being asked which is always nice.
Clifton Terrace School team, Nelson. Troy Kelso, Zac McCall, William Jackson, Preston Warren, Daniel Lee and Jasper Kelly.
Clifton Terrace School team, Nelson
Nelson Intermediate School team. Dallas Kelso, Elan Remnant, Jamie Harding, Kurt Ward, Fletching King and Shoei Ito
Nelson Intermediate School team
We did manage to sneak in to the online tournament room and capture one photo of William Austin in action.
Online Teams Nationals - William Austin
We did some brainstorming on what activities we could do between rounds and we had an idea. How about a Karaoke contest? Would it be possible? Would it be fun? Well after a whole series of technical challenges we managed to get it up and running. Here is one of the contestants giving it a crack. She won the competition by the way.

TEAM CERTIFICATES

Teams were ranked and each player of every team earned a certificate based on their team placing. Schools were sent personalised certificates by email.

Junior Division

Merit Certificates

  • Maraetai Beach School
  • Runanga School
  • Seatoun School
  • TKKM o Otara
  • Mt Roskill Primary School
  • Cromwell Primary School

Credit Certificates

  • Waihi East School
  • Lynmore Primary School
  • Clifton Terrace School

Excellence Certificates

  • Kelson School
  • Hillsborough School
  • Endeavour School

Distinction Certificates

  • Avonhead School

Intermediate Division

Merit Certificates

  • Greytown School
  • Opaki School
  • Mt Aspiring College
  • St Teresa's School, Featherston
  • Cromwell College
  • Seatoun School

Credit Certificates

  • Mt Roskill Intermediate
  • South Wellington Intermediate
  • Waimea Intermediate
  • Nelson Intermediate

Excellence Certificates

  • Nelson College Preparatory School
  • John Paul College

Distinction Certificates

  • Avonhead School
  • Raroa Normal Intermediate

Senior Division

Merit Certificates

  • One Tree Hill College
  • Mt Aspring College
  • Wairarapa College
  • Mt Roskill Grammar
  • St John's College, Hastings

Credit Certificates

  • John Paul College
  • Naenae College
  • Trident High School

Excellence Certificates

  • Nelson College
  • Canterbury Home Educators

Distinction Certificates

  • Hamilton Boys' High School

BEST GIRL CHAMPIONS

The three best individual female players in each division received a "best-girl" medal by courier.

Best Girls Junior Division
1st - Ritika Joseph (Avonhead School)
2nd - Chloe Slater (Lynmore Primary School)
3rd - Daniela Slack (Lynmore Primary School)

Best Girls Intermediate Division
1st - Nyla Fulo (John Paul College)
2nd - Safiya Saheb (Mt Roskill Intermediate)
3rd - Zahra Salemi (South Wellington Intermediate)

Best Girls Senior Division
1st - Lucy Taylor (Naenae College)
2nd - McKenzie Swinburne (John Paul College)
3rd - Celia Chanwong (Mt Roskill Grammar)

INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONS

The three best individual players overall in each division received a "champion" medal by courier.

Junior Division

1st Overall - Artem Anikonov (Avonhead School)
Artem earned the Junior Master title for achieving 1st= place in the whole junior division.
2nd Overall - Ritika Joseph (Avondhead School)
Ritika earned the Junior Master title for achieving 1st= place in the whole junior division. It should be noted that Artem and Ritika both won all their games. The tie was broken by using the first tie-break called Bucholz cut-1. It is calculated by adding all of each players' opponents scores and removing the lowest opponent score. Artem's Bucholz cut-1 score was 48.5. Ritika's Bucholz cut-1 score was 47. So Artem won 1st place on tie-break.
3rd Overall - Nathan Sun (Endeavour School)

Intermediate Division

1st Overall - Toby Shannon (Raroa Normal Intermediate)
Toby earned the Junior Master title for being the top individual in the whole intermediate division.
2nd Overall - Jordan Flewellen (Nelson College Preparatory School)
3rd Overall - Uros Ponjiger (Avonhead School)
Jordan and Uros scored the same amount of points. The tie was broken with Bucholz cut-1. Jordan's Bucholz cut-1 score was 43.5. Uros Bucholz cut-1 score was 39.5. So Jordan won 2nd place on tie-break.

Senior Division

1st Overall - Alexandre de Maupeou d'Ableiges (Nelson College)
Alexandre earned the Junior Master title for achieving 1st= in the whole senior division.

2nd Overall - Ishaan Singh (Hamilton Boys' High School)
Ishaan earned the Junior Master title for achieving 1st= in the whole senior division.

Alexandre and Ishaan both scored the same amount of points. The tie was broken with Bucholz cut-1. Alexandre's Bucholz cut-1 score was 48. Isaan's Bucholz cut-1 score was 47.5. It doesn't get closer than that!

3rd Overall - Noah Brown (Canterbury Home Educators)

The Junior Master framed certificate was sent to each new Junior Master.

TEAM CHAMPIONS

Each 1st placed overall team receives a glass trophy with their schools and player names on it. The trophy will need to be returned to Chess Power prior to the next Nationals. Each team members received a team medal.

Junior Division

The Junior division was quite close until the last few rounds when Avonhead School pulled away from the group.

Avonhead School, Christchurch - 1st overall

The team consisted of Artem Anikonov, Ritika Joseph, Ritul Joseph, Callum Busfield and Liam Zhang.

Endeavour School, Hamilton - 2nd overall

The team consisted of Nathan Sun, Kieran Sloan, Roza Rafe, Aarav Sangam and Jesse Lyons.

Hillsborough School, Auckland - 3rd overall
The team consisted of Xavier Nakatsuji, Naitik Sharma, Nithya Anegondi, Ashish Bavihal and Caleb Wong.

Intermediate Division

The Intermediate division featured a neck-and-neck race between Raroa Normal Intermediate, Avonhead School, John Paul College and Nelson College. 

Raroa Normal Intermediate, Wellington - 1st Overall
The team consisted of Toby Shannon, Lithesh Uday, Ira Crampton, Arham Jain and Will Steward.

Avonhead School, Christchurch - 2nd Overall
The team consisted of Uros Ponjiger, Bentley Phan, Geroge Ikeda, Jack Noesgaard and Matthew Aguilar. 

Remarably Raroa Normal Intermediate and Avonhead School scored the same number of team points. So we have to go to the tie-breaks. The first tie-break, the sum of the top 4 players scores was the same 24.5. The 2nd tie-break, the sum of the top 5-players scores was the same 27.5. There weren't any more players so the 3rd tie-break of summing the top n-players scores couldn't separate the two teams. So we had to go to the 4th tie-break, the sum of the top 4 players countback. Here the teams finally showed a difference. Raroa Normals' countback sum was 187.5. Whereas Avonheads was 178. So the 1st place prize were to Raroa Normal Intermediate. 

John Paul College, Rotorua - 3rd Overall 
The team consisted of Nyla Fulo, Max Slack, Charles Meurisse, Allan Huang, Toby Truong and Luke Milliken.

Senior Division

The Senior Division was also quite tight with John Paul College, Naenae College, Trident High School, Nelson College, Canterbury Home Educators and 2019 champions Hamilton Boys' High all in the running for the title.

Hamilton Boys' High School, Hamilton - 1st Overall
The team consisted of Ishaan Singh, Joel Crombie, Sean Clark, Aidan Webster and Andy Song.

Canterbury Home Educations, Christchurch - 2nd Overall
The team consisted of Noah Brown, David Evans, Philip Brand, Thomas Coker and Henry Sole.

Nelson College - 3rd Overall
The team consisted of Alexandre de Maupeou d'Ableiges, Sam White, Ronan Thompson and An Nguyen.

SUPPORTER OF THE YEAR

Each year we recognise one individual for all the support they give to Chess in their community. This year we awarded the Supporter of the Year trophy to Kateryna Slack. Last year Kateryna took over the Rotorua Roaring Knights, a community chess club in Rotorua. Since doing so, she has successfully established a thriving community of players, both young and old. She's helped in every way possible, assisting her own Lynmore Primary team to attend many events throughout the year. She also managed, with the help of other parents and staff, the venue for the Rotorua Regional tournament. This was a massive undertaking, both in time, effort, and money. She does an incredible job and continues to promote Rotorua Chess whole-heartedly.

Feedback - Win 6 chess sets!

If you attended the event, we would really love to hear what you thought. We are giving away 6 chess sets for the best feedback.

Send feedback today

 

Event Photos

Please email us your team photos to events@chesspower.co.nz so we can add them to this report! Like our Facebook page and get notified as soon as we post them online.
In the meantime, check out all the photos of the onsite Team Nationals event on our Facebook page

Where to from here?

View the Onsite Team Nationals report

View the Online Champions Trophy report

View the Onsite Champions Trophy report

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