Hughston Parle wins Doubleroo rapid with picket fence. Marcus Su does the same in Grades 1-5 event.

Open Tournament

Hughston Parle has been playing exceptional chess lately drawing with Queenslands newest International master Brodie McClymont a few weeks ago not to mention drawing with Grammars board 1 Tom Slater-Jones and beating TSS board 1 David Liu in the GPS inter-school competition. 

Michael D'Arcy handed out prizes on behalf of the Queensland chess federation.

Jason Wang made the winners circle once more losing only to the winner and drawing with Henry Slater-Jones. He was second on countback with 5.5/7. Picktured to the right is Churchie's favourite D.O.P Tyson Walker

Henry Slater-Jones is another outstanding Queensland junior with a FIDE (world chess federation) rating of 1920, only 2 points below his older brother Tom. He played a bit too solidly (dare I say professionally?), not losing any games but drawing three and didn't get to play the winner.

Third on countback with 5.5/7 is not bad though

Three players tied for the U800 rating prize, Keanu Matsuura won

Chun Lee came second

and Evan Fraser third. All three made 4/7

Isaac Lupari also finished on 4/7 but lost the tiebreak lottery.

Sophie Watkins was the best girl also scoring 4/7 and played the whole tournament on the top tables. She beat everyone under 1492, losing only to the professionals. 

Standings

Place Name                Feder Rtg Loc  Club      Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.

  1   Parle, Hughston     B         1482 800+      7        20.5  29.0   28.0
 2-3  Wang, Jason         B         1543 800+      5.5      22.5  33.0   22.5
      Slater-Jones, Henry B         1512 800+      5.5      22.5  31.5   24.0
 4-6  Kundal, Armaan      B         904  800+      5        21.0  30.5   22.0
      Su, Lucas           B         874  800+      5        20.5  28.5   19.0
      deGit, Cole         B         840  800+      5        18.0  25.0   20.0
 7-8  Liu, David (GC)     GC        1492 800+      4.5      22.0  31.5   20.5
      Waddell, Craig      B         898  800+      4.5      17.5  25.0   17.0
9-14  Watkins, Sophie     B         876  800+      4        21.5  30.0   18.0
      Fraser, Daniel      B         1090 800+      4        20.5  28.5   18.0
      Matsuura, Keanu     GC        790  Under 800 4        18.0  25.0   15.0
      Lee, Chun           B         744  Under 800 4        17.5  23.0   14.0
      Fraser, Evan        B         773  Under 800 4        16.5  23.5   14.0
      Lupari, Isaac       B         743  Under 800 4        15.0  22.5   12.0
15-17 Chan, Jacob         GC        988  800+      3.5      21.5  30.0   20.0
      Yuan, Dylan         B         722  Under 800 3.5      19.0  25.5   16.0
      Huang, Aaron        B         588  Under 800 3.5      14.0  19.5   11.0
18-24 Cox, Joshua                        Under 800 3        18.0  25.0   12.0
      Milbourne, Noah                    Under 800 3        16.5  24.0   12.0
      Zhuang, Raymond     B         832  800+      3        16.0  24.5   12.0
      Eager, Blake        B         638  Under 800 3        16.0  22.5   12.0
      Congreve, Sophie    B         872  800+      3        15.0  20.5   12.0
      Houghton, Sam       B         602  Under 800 3        15.0  20.0    9.0
      Kane, Euan          B         518  Under 800 3        13.5  19.0    6.0
 25   Shresth, Aryan      B         825  800+      2.5      17.5  23.5   13.0
26-30 Williams, Joshua                   Under 800 2        16.5  22.0   11.0
      Evans, Angus                       Under 800 2        15.5  23.0    6.0
      Wood, Joshua        B         652  Under 800 2        14.5  21.0    8.0
      Pollack, Oscar                     Under 800 2        14.0  18.5    5.0
      Millar, Jack                       Under 800 2        13.5  20.0    8.0
 31   Heaven, Max    

Grades 1-5 tournament

Marcus Su won this event with ease and should play in the open next time. Not only his score but his play was so impressive that even my "official photographer", Francoise Petitjean, noticed. Pictured to the left of Marcus is Mr Max Condon, master of Chess at Churchie and the driving force behind our whole chess program.

Lachlan Congreve cruised into second place on 6/7 with a broken arm.

Rei Sannomiya looks happy with his third place scoring 4.5/7

And so our third term rapid concluded with lots of happy faces on this glorious winters day. 55 participants is a new record I think and we also had many players come up from the Gold Coast. Thanks must go to their parents who drove such a long way to indulge their children's passion.

Let's see is we can break this record in term 4 :-)

Standings

Place Name                Feder Rtg Loc Score M-Buch. Buch. Progr.

  1   Su, Marcus          B         626 7        21.5  31.5   28.0
  2   Congreve, Lachlan   B         598 6        19.5  28.5   24.0
 3-5  Sannomiya, Rei                    4.5      21.5  31.0   19.0
      Chan, Jordan        GC        544 4.5      21.0  30.0   20.0
      Khagram, Aaryan     B         563 4.5      19.0  28.0   18.0
 6-9  Williams, Matthew                 4        22.5  32.5   19.0
      Khagram, Ayesha                   4        20.5  30.0   17.0
      Huang, Adam                       4        18.0  26.0   17.0
      Hsu, Kelvin                       4        17.5  26.5   17.0
10-13 Bose, Ishan                       3.5      18.5  26.5   17.0
      Woodhouse, Roc                    3.5      17.5  24.0   14.0
      Lee, Adeline                      3.5      15.5  22.0   13.0
      Gregory, Jeremy                   3.5      13.0  18.5   12.0
 14   Evans, Bella                      3        15.5  21.5   12.0
15-16 Mathew, Christopher               2.5      15.5  22.0    7.5
      Latimer, William                  2.5      12.0  18.0    7.0
17-22 Brookes, Ardy                     2        16.0  22.5   10.5
      Hsu, Perry                        2        14.5  20.0    9.0
      Latimer, Isabella                 2        14.0  20.5    8.0
      Coxon, Nicholas                   2        13.5  21.5    4.5
      Sejourne, Pierre                  2         7.0  15.5    5.0
      Swindale, Lachlan                 2         6.0  12.0    5.0
 23   Sejourne, Maxime                  1         7.0  12.5    2.5

 24   Sanders, Aidan                    0.5       7.0  12.5    1.5        

Jojo the baby crab and his incredible adventure

Jojo's home was a nice beach we humans call Salt beach, just south of Kingscliff after crossing Cudgen Creek. 

Jojo had spent his whole short life living amongst the tidal rocks near the mouth of the creek. There was never a shortage of food as the area is teeming with little snails, sandworms, cockles and other little creatures. Jojo was also on the menu of many larger predators such as birds. Crabs always  keep an eye out for predators and as soon as they see one they skittle under a rock or piece of seaweed. Their camouflage is quite good and they usually get away.   

These tricks may fool birds but a sharp eyed human child is not so easy to hide from. Luckily for Jojo Nina was not interested in eating him. He tried to escape several times, jumping from her hands to the sands below which is a bit like skydiving without a parachute.

Nina was determined to keep her new friend though and Jojo finally settled down when he was given a seashell and a little water to settle down in. Imagine Jojo's surprise when he got to the car! As soon as we got in Jojo hopped out of the shell and scurried into the seat belt buckle. 

Meanwhile we had a conversation with Nina explaining to her that Jojo would not be happy or even survive in a garden or house. He needed the sea, the tide and the rocks, not to mention family and friends. It was all academic though as Jojo was now somewhere in the car. there were nooks and crannies everywhere, between the seats, under the clothes, towels, drink bottles etc. We had little expectation of finding Jojo again.

Suddenly he reappeared, crawling up Nina's arm. Had he lost his fear? Was she just the most familiar thing in the car? Next he explored her hair! When we arrived he was back in Nina's hand and seemed quite comfortable and Nina was reconciled to returning Jojo to his natural habitat albeit several kilometers from his home.

Cabarita beach?

Hastings point?

Nina decided on Cabarita beach, partly because it looked like a nice place to have a swim.

The water was warm and the waves were gentle and Jojo had a new home

Francoise found lots of subjects to photograph while Nina and I tried piggyback bodysurfing. 

Is this an invention?

Just another winters day in OZ :-)