The 2023 Kāpiti Junior Championship

A record turnout of 80 kids from 18 schools across the Wellington, Kāpiti and Horowhenua regions competed in the fourth running of the Kāpiti Junior Championship on August 12, 2023. With heaps of parents and caregivers looking on, it was fantastic atmosphere as kids competed individually and as part of their school over four divisions, and for best Kapiti-Horowhenua school.

Top seed Ryan Winter made it two for two, taking out the Championship Open division for the second year in a row with an unbeaten 5½ from 6.  Along with Ryan, the Open division featured some top New Zealand juniors, including previous New Zealand junior champion Josh Langford who finished runner-up on 4½ with a single loss to Ryan in Round 2. Sharing third place was runner-up at this year’s NZ Juniors, Cohen Young, along with Kayden Loke, Levi Paxton and Alex Coates. 

In the school grade events, Luke Chang was an impressive winner in the Secondary grade, unbeaten with 5½ points from 6. Toby Shannon took the Silver, and Jacob Bayler the Bronze. In the Intermediate section, Timothy Wang and Samuel Coles both top-scored on 5 from 6, with Timothy narrowly edging out Samual on tie-break to take the Gold. Bronze was shared with Ushnishi Chakraborty, Alistair Brownie and Marcel Milson all on 4 points. In the primary section, Mark Wu and Leo Lawton both top scored on 5 points from 6, with Mark edging out Leo on tie-break for the Gold medal. Zachery He, Niranjana Sethuramlingam and Jingwei Xu all took away Bronze.

The School Trophy, awarded to the top performing Kāpiti or Horowhenua school, was won again by Levin Intermediate 13½ (aggregate score for top 4 players), with  Kāpiti College next on 11½. In third place was Ōpiki School. Congrats to Levin Intermediate winners for the third year running! Congrats also to the top scoring school on the day, which was Onslow College. 

Thanks to all the players and parents for a fantastic day of Chess, and to organiser and director Gordon Lyall, his wife Andrea and with others who helped out, to make the day run smoothly.

Final standings, 2023 Kāpiti Junior Chess Championship: Click on the links to see full results of that grade.

Photos and videos from the day including all the prize-winners can be found here.
Results from previous years can be found here.
Tournament poster