By Sean C. Thomas

Laurentian University’s second annual Chess tournament was once again conducted by Sean Thomas and began early this year with several returnees and a lot of new faces. Matches started early this year and finally came to an end last month.

This year’s semi-finals saw two returning semi-finalists: Raymond Modise and Janique Vandal (last year’s first and second place winners) and two new contenders: Todd Belrose and Thato Baruti. After a nerve-wracking, tight fought match between Janique and Thato in the semi-finals, Janique emerged victorious. The match between Todd and Raymond took an unexpected turn
of events when a sudden move by Todd resulted in check-mate. The third place match fought between Raymond and Thato resulted in the victory of Thato.

The pulsating final match for the championship between Janique and Todd was a rematch of the round-robin. In the round-robin, Todd had defeated Janique. So tensions were running high and in what was one of the best played matches in the history of the tournament, Janique overcame all odds to win the match and the championship.

We take this opportunity to thank all our sponsors and the participants for making Laurentian’s Chess Tournament a grand success.

lambda@laurentian.ca