Lanna International School (LIST) was the host of another
chess tournament for students from the different international schools
around Chiang Mai. Gary Johnston from LIST made sure that the outside
playing area was under shady canopies and the sports field and basketball
court was available and open for students who wanted to run around or play
in their downtime.
Even
though more boys were seen playing, the concentration of the players was
equal.
The Elementary and Secondary Chess Tournament could
already be called a success looking at the numbers of players. Seven per
grade level were allowed and the elementary tournament included grades 2-6,
plus the high school was grades 7-12. Each student played a minimum of two
games, and if a student lost the first game, he was pooled into a
consultation bracket.
The prizes were medals for the best of each grade,
trophies for the elementary and secondary tournament champion, and ribbons
for all participants. But it was not winning what counted it was
participation and seeing so many youngsters taking part in a game which is
still seen as a ‘sport’ for old geniuses or bored retirees. The
youngsters proved everybody wrong with the enthusiasm they showed despite
the heat of the morning.
The students were on time, checked in at the judge’s
table and were assigned a board, for which they had 30 minutes to play a
game. If a game did not finish in that time, the students decided who was
called the winner, by who had the most pieces on the board.
Thanks went to all of the schools who were kind enough to
bring chess boards to the tournament to assure that there was not an excess
of players and shortage of boards.
In the elementary tournament, the grade 2 and 3 round
robin resulted in a three way tie between Bright from Lanna, Juchan from
Grace and Alex from the German School.
The grade 4 championship when to JT from Grace and the
consolation winner was Ben T. from Grace.
The grade 5 winner was Narit from Lanna and the
consolation went to Sun from Grace.
The grade 6 round robin resulted in a tie between Dhara
from Grace and Daniel C. from Grace.
The high school did not have the same number of students that entered the
elementary tournament. Thus a round robin was held between students in
grades 7-9 and 10-11. The winners of each were Poompong from CMU and Yon
from the German School. They played each other for the high school
championship – this ended in a draw and thus both shared the title of high
school champion.
One
of the Thai exchange students who received a TWE scholarship to study in the
US.
Cooling
off in the stream after a hard day of tree-planting!
Singing
together and listening to the story of Saint Martin.
Every
child had made his own lantern and showed it off proudly.
