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Brandon Moyo, [email protected]

FORTY teams from 13 schools drawn from five provinces participated at the 2023 edition of the Girls College Chess Tournament held in Bulawayo.

The schools which took part in the tournament were from Matabeleland North, Midlands, Harare, Matabeleland South, Bulawayo and Mashonaland West.

Bulawayo were represented by Dominican Convent, Petra, Christian Brothers College (CBC), Njube High School, Riverdale and Higher Learning Center with Matabeleland North having Inyathi High School while Lomagundi College came in from Mashonaland West.

The other schools at the tournament were Kyle College (Masvingo), Matabeleland South’s Falcon College, Midlands Christian College (MCC), Harare’s Dominican Convent and St George’s.

Girls College A won the juniors’ category 17 points, with Dominican Convent Harare coming second with 15.5 points, while third place went to Dominican Convent Bulawayo who amassed 13 points.

The senior girls category was won by Dominican Convent Harare who finished with a massive 20 points and were followed by Girls College A and Inyathi on 13.5 and 12.5 points respectively

Inyathi were crowned champion in the boys’ competition with 15 points, two ahead of Riverdale and St. George’s who were both on 13 points.

The tournament’s chief arbiter, Zimbabwe Chess Federation (ZCF) representative for Matabeleland South and a Chess in Education Commissioner, Brighton Duburo was impressed with the level of competition, adding that the tournament plays a huge part in helping learners use chess as a learning tool.

“The tournament went on well and was greatly organised with schools from several parts of the country. The real aim of the tournament is to develop chess in schools, we want to see learners playing chess and using it as a tool to promote learning in schools.

“We want to inculcate chess intelligence to our learners, this is the art of learning life skills, business lessons, morals, vocabulary and language through chess. Normally people concentrate on the sporting aspect of chess neglecting its art and science aspect for it to accommodate everyone,” said Duburo.

-@brandon_malvin