The MCAST Campus was the stage of this year's Junior Chess Championship held last week by the Malta Chess Federation and kindly sponsored by APS Bank.

Three Swiss tournaments were run in parallel with seventy one players competing for the six official titles that were at stake.

Net favourite and eventual winner of the top category was Mark Cardona, 14 years of Qormi. Cardona made this a prestigious double after he had won the Candidates' competition in the previous week. The latter earned him a place in the top-six, senior national Chess finals 2004, that started this week.

Charles Sinn, last year's Malta Junior Champion, placed a meritable second just one point behind Cardona while Oliver Said was third, also on four points.

In the younger categories special mention goes to Luke Saliba (U/12) who won all his games and to the promising Rubi Mercieca who showed everyone that girls can also play good chess. She scored four points out of a possible five in the U/12 category.

This is the complete list of 2004 title winners and the School last attended.

Junior Champion: Mark Cardona - De La Salle College.
U/18 Champion: Christian Pullicino - St.Elias College.
U/16 Champion: Justin Farrugia - De La Salle College.
U/14 Champion: Omar Shamala - St.Elias College.
U/12 Champion: Luke Saliba - St.Elias College.
U/10 Champion: Reuben Borg - San Anton School.

Best Girls Overall: Rubi Mercieca - St.Catherine's School.
Best Girls U/14: Kirsty Aquilina - St.Theresa Junior Lyceum.

Arbiter: Mr.R. Azzopardi