2025 World Schools’ Teams Chess Championship – Washington, D.C.

The Wellington College Chess Team – Ollie Archer (Yr13), Matthew Keith (Yr10), Karthik Sethuramalingam (Yr11), Joshua Lieser (Yr10), and Aadhav Dhamodharan (Yr10) – travelled to Washington D.C last week to compete in the World Schools’ Teams Chess Championship.

As a result of winning the 2024 New Zealand Secondary Schools Chess Championship, the WC team had the rare opportunity to test themselves against some of the world’s best young chess players at the tournament, with 55 teams from 47 countries taking part.

Two team wins on Day 1 had WC sitting high on the points table going into Day 2, but it also meant they would come up against some other very talented teams in the rounds to follow.

A highlight of the tournament was in Round 6 against the Estonian team. Ollie and his opponent’s game went for well over 2 hours and, because the Estonian player couldn’t agree to a draw as it would cause a loss for his team, the arbiters had to step in and declare a draw based on the 75 move rule. This draw, after board wins from Matthew and Karthik, would secure a much-needed team win for WC and kept us in contention for the top spots.

When Ollie finally exited the playing hall, he was greeted by his teammates running towards him and cheering. They had been watching every move of his seemingly never ending battle and were ecstatic with the result.

The high point of WC’s tournament came the following day in Round 7, when the boys got to play the Kazakhstani team, who had a Grand Master in their team at just 15 years old. All four of the Kazakhstanis were very impressive players and rank higher than the vast majority, if not all, of New Zealand’s chess players.

Kazakhstan would convincingly beat us on all four boards, but Ollie put up a good fight against their Grand Master, while Matthew, on Board 2, kept his competitor playing for almost two hours before having to concede defeat. Our boys were in awe of how the Kazakhstanis played their chess, rewatching their game footage to marvel at the strategy they used. 

After 8 rounds of play throughout the tournament, the Wellington College team were placed a very respectable 13th overall out of the 55 teams, a truly fantastic result. 

The top three placed teams were Velammal MHS School, India (1st), National School of Physics & Mathematics, Kazakhstan (2nd), and The Harker School, USA (3rd).

It was an incredible event which brought together children, teenagers, and adults from all over the world. Many friendships and memories were made. Wellington College are incredibly grateful to FIDE, the International Schools Chess Federation, and the New Zealand Chess Federation for inviting us to the tournament.

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