PLC State Chess Champions for 20th Time!

On the 12th of October, a team of 12 PLC girls competed in the secondary girls’ interschool state finals. There was fierce competition with many tough battles fought, and the final scores for the tournament were extremely close.

Prior to this tournament the team had exchanged theory and practised together at Chess Club, analysing various positions and learning from our mistakes. The girls also played in a series of open interschool tournaments, which provided strong competition for additional practice.

The secondary girls’ interschool state finals were held online this year, posing a challenge for some team members, as they were unfamiliar with playing through a screen at home, without the atmosphere that comes with an in-person, over the board tournament. The tournament consisted of seven rounds, during which the whole team participated, with the top five player’s scores contributing to our team’s overall score. The top two teams then advanced into the grand final.

After these initial 7 games, PLC was placed equal first with St Catherine’s on 24 points each. As the top two teams, both schools progressed to the grand final, which was held later on the same day. For this, PLC's top 5 players were ranked from board 1 to board 5, and competed board-to-board with the top 5 players of St Catherine’s in two rounds (once as white and once as black).

The grand final was a nail-biter, requiring players to formulate strategic plans, spot tactics, and make sharp calculations under time pressure. However, PLC emerged victorious, with only a one-point difference, securing our 20th win out of the past 22 state final tournaments.

A huge congratulations to Cassandra, Lilyana, Prisha, Angela, Karis, Jennifer, Angela, Malavika, Harani, Audrey, Vinudi and Shenny.

A team of 5 will go on to see if they can claim a 6th title in a row at the National Championships in December!