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| Nicholas M., the 2018 IHMS Chess Champion |
Chess is a popular winter pastime at IHMS when students are looking for a quiet activity to do during indoor recesses. Appropriately, the chess club begins in January and runs until March or April. Students who wish to participate sign up, and after a schedule is created, play against other students from their own grade. Everyone is responsible for arranging their own games and recording the outcome of those games.
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Students are given about 2 months to challenge and play other students in their class. On the day of the deadline (usually the beginning of March), the person from each class with the most wins is declared the “classroom champion”, and is scheduled to participate in the playoffs. This year, there were 5 classroom champions from grades 4 to 8. They were: |
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These classroom champions played a series of games against each other in order to progressively narrow down the competition. A playoff schedule was created and within a few weeks, three competitors were eliminated – Guneet B. (grade 4), her brother Inderjeet B. (grade 6) and Daniel T., (grade 7). But they didn’t go down without a fight! All three of these classroom champions played intelligent and strategic games, and it was sad to see them eliminated. They did a exemplary job representing their respective classrooms and should be very proud of their achievements.
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| Two players remained to battle it out in the chess finals – Alex P. and Nicholas M. |
As mentioned above, two of this year’s finalists were from the same family – Inderjeet B. in grade 6 and his sister Guneet B. in grade 4. This was the first time that a pair of siblings were classroom champions at the same time.
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The two remaining players, Alex P. (grade 8) and Nicholas M. (grade 5), moved on to the final round of play. The first player to win 3 out of 5 games would be crowned the chess champion for 2018. |
| In the final round of play, Alex had several advantages over Nicholas. First of all, Alex was an experienced player. He was the classroom champion in grade 4 and was experienced playing against other classroom champions in the playoffs. In addition, Alex, a grade 8 student, was three years older than Nicholas, a grade 5 student. |  |
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| Nicholas and Alex playing their fourth and final game |
As it turned out, age and experience didn’t matter because the finals were a blowout! Despite Alex’s best efforts to stay in the game, Nicholas was clearly the stronger player. Losing only one game out of four, Nicholas emerged as the IHMS Chess Champion for 2018!
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2018 Chess Club final standings
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