The battle of North Street for Chess supremacy is played between Kingston College and St. George’s College Chess Clubs each year. This tournament, dubbed the Maurice Chess Tournament, was started when Chess was played by the most prominent Chess Clubs among high schools.
Maurice Tenn was the first Chess Coach at St. Georges College and initiated this tournament over forty years ago and it continues to play annually organized and carried out by the present coaches of both schools.
The tournament is played with eight players from each Club representing the Upper school and lower school of each in a home and away format.
KC's Chess Team
This year saw Kingston College being the host of the first round on Friday, January 23. K.C. featured K. Warren, S. Barnes, C. Wilkinson and E. Anderson representing the upper school and M. McPherson, A. Brown and K. Lawrence representing the lower school. For St. George’s College, representing the upper school were A. Crosdale, R. Morris, K. Knight and D. Wong . The lower school was represented by P. Samuels, C. Stewart, A. Clarke and M. Anthony.
The afternoon got off to a marvelous start with both schools feeling confident. St George’s Being the defending Champions of 2008 won the first board at the expense of an absent K.C. player. This made them over confident but K.C. was not in a joking mood on their senior team as Wilkinson proved that he was not a joking fifth former. Being the son of the President of the Jamaica Chess Federation, he was serious about putting away his rival early. This was followed by Warren and Anderson. Barnes on the other hand failed to capitalize on the blunders of his opponent Crosdale and failed to score.
While the juniors featured two experienced players, Brown and McPherson scored only on those boards. End of day saw K.C. with five [5] points to St. Georges three [3] points gained on Clarke, Anthony and Crosdale boards.
Play continues on Monday at St. Georges for the final round commencing at 3:00p.m.
