It was a clear “checkmate” for a group of Thames High School students who competed at the Regional Chess Challenge recently, coming away with a 24-point win to secure five spots at the national competition in October.
Thames High students Felix Milner, Jay Majurey, Immanuel Huwald, Til Guernth and Guido Fiorenzi were dubbed the top five individual players of the challenge held at Hauraki Plains College on June 5, which means they qualified for the Chess Power ONSITE Team National Finals in Wellington.
Seventeen-year-old Kou Ichikawa was part of the team and placed 11th, but missed out on the national qualification.
Thirteen-year-old champion Felix Milner told The Profile even though his team was expecting it – “it still felt great to win”.
Felix said he played seven games, and even though the first three were relatively easy – he struggled most in the one he lost against a player from Ngaruawahia High School.
“They had a few good players. There were two Year 13s I think that I struggled a bit against,” Felix said.
“And those were probably the two hardest games.”
Overall, Felix said he usually played “quite positionally and fast”, but during the last few moves of the game he would find himself getting “locked up”.
“I need more movement in my end games, so that’s probably the biggest thing,” he said.
When asked if he could create a new chess move, Felix said he’d like to see a further reaching knight – one that moves three squares forward and two squares across.
His inspiration came from chess videos and tournaments, but it was: “playing with my Dad that always got me started”, he said.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Jay Majurey said he first took up the game when he saw a chess board in the library office in 2022.
Jay said he wasn’t really preparing for the national competition in any way – but was looking forward to playing with new people.
A similar sentiment was expressed by 15-year-old Immanuel Huwald, who said he always enjoyed the challenge of playing against others – but in terms of preparation: “I just play chess”.
He said it’s like any other sport.
“If you want to get good you need to practice and play against other people, most importantly people of varying playing ability.”
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Til Guernth said the most important thing about chess was just “playing a ton”.
“You can learn theory and everything, but playing chess against people who are stronger than you is the best way you can improve.”
Til is an exchange student and will head back to Germany in August so unfortunately wouldn’t be able to go to the nationals.
He said he would have prepared for the competition by watching chess videos from Youtuber GothamChess.
But when it came to winning, 18-year-old Guido Fiorenzi said it was not always a good thing.
“The fun part of this game is to squeeze your brain to overcome the opponent’s tactics.”
He said the most important thing in chess was how you can play 100 excellent moves: “but just one blunder will lead you to lose the game”.
