School Activities

St Catherine's Chess Team Sweeps to Victory!

Last Saturday, January 19th 2013, saw probably the best ever performance by the St Catherine's chess team. And we almost didn't play... twice!

The competition was the "Grandmaster" team tournament for primary schools hosted by Ireland's only grandmaster, Alexander Baburin. "Alex" is a chess professional and is originally from Russia, but he's now an Irish citizen and plays for Ireland in the chess Olympics. When he came to live in Ireland first, many years ago, he and his wife were living in Francis St, and their son Ivan attended St Catherine's.

We have entered a number of individual and team tournaments this year and I originally thought we would give the Grandmaster tournament a miss. But Keelin and Eric, our number 1 and 2 players, pleaded with me and I agreed they could play if they got another two players to form a team.

On the day, only one other St Catherine's player turned up (Oscar) and I thought we were going to have to withdraw, as there are four on a team. But Alex lent us a spare player from another school, Eric Kendrick. He certainly turned out to be a "Super Sub" as he won all his five matches. Oscar scored 4 / 5, Keelin 3½ / 5 (a great score on Board 1) and Eric 3 / 5, and it was enough to put our team top ahead of 31 other primary school teams. The last game of the whole competition was Keelin's nail-biting final win, with a large crowd watching. Coolness under pressure won the day!

Well done everyone!