Kings of Chess

Our Toowoomba Grammar School Chess program has experienced one of its most successful years in the School’s history.

TGS placed runner-up State Champions overall at the Queensland Chess Championships in October, which attracts hundreds of schools from across the State. We were also crowned Regional State Champions in both the Primary School and Secondary School divisions at this tournament. Not only did our TGS ‘Team 1’ win the Regional Secondary title, but our ‘Team 2’ placed third. TGS also won the ‘Best Board’ prize for boards 1, 2, 3 and 4 in that division.

These outstanding results followed on from TGS winning both the Secondary and Primary School divisions in the Toowoomba District Teams Competition. It was the 27th consecutive year that we’ve claimed that title.

Add to that our strong and consistent performances in the GPS competition. TGS had 15 teams competing in this year’s GPS Championship and we finished third overall, narrowly missing second place after drawing with Brisbane State High School. The boys started this successful journey in April, when we were excited to host a chess legend at the TGS Chess Clinic. Chess International Master (IM) and professional player, Gary Lane shared his skills and knowledge with over sixty students from 14-16 April.

Mr Lane has won the Commonwealth Chess Championship and represented Australia at several Chess Olympiads. He is the author of over 30 chess books and arrived at TGS after playing in the premier division of the Doeberl Cup, the “Australian Chess Grand Prix”.

Mr Lane provided expert advice on chess strategy and gameplay, shared his international-level experience and provided guidance and mentorship about the challenges and stress associated with high-level competitive play. But the highlight was when Mr Lane personally played every student at the clinic over a series of simultaneous matches.

The Chess Clinic is an annual event to prepare our boys for the GPS Chess season. It helps facilitate the social development of students through their shared passion and experience, while providing expert coaching on complex and specific aspects of the game. This coaching is tailored to individual players’ ability to maximise their growth, ranging from novice to expert.

It also provides the opportunity to play a classical tournament against players of similar ability level. Classical tournaments have more extended time frames (one to three hours per game) and are often not practised sufficiently in schools. These tournaments allow for more involved thought processing and deep thinking, beneficial for student cognitive development in various aspects outside of chess.

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1. The TGS Premier players with the coaches (L - R) Mr Benjamin Peach, Mr Gary Lane, Mr Leslie Lord, Mr Jonathan Jones and Mr Thomas Schmierer.