{"id":9940,"date":"2020-04-18T19:50:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-18T17:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/xolani-takes-gold-at-top-chess-championship-copy\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T14:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T12:56:00","slug":"xolani-takes-gold-at-top-chess-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/xolani-takes-gold-at-top-chess-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Xolani takes gold at top chess championship"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">School of Education 4<sup>th<\/sup> year student Xolani Mathebula took a top 10 place at the competitive two-day <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ethekwini-Chess-Association-245452742474477\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ethekwini Open Chess Championship<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More than 100 players competed in the A-section with another 90 players in the B-section.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He says that the Durban championship has gained popularity in recent years as players from across South Africa and neighbouring countries meet to play the game of kings.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;With two easy wins and draw on the first day, this put me in an enviable position of 2,5 of 3 score.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Day 2 also started well for me with a hard fought win against a strong opponent and protracted struggle.&nbsp; This was followed loss against the national master and SA Chess Olympiad team member Mosetlhe Kgaugelo. &nbsp;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He explains that the win was followed by a win against a local player, Majola Zenzele, who blundered with his &#8220;Rook and Knight&#8221;.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the end of the championships, Xolani &#8216;s final score was 4,5 points out of a total of 6 and an overall position of 9th as a result of 8th position tie.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Xolani is a previous SPU sportsman of the year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To read about another SPU chess champion, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/spu-chess-champion-simon-maupa\/\">Simon Maupa.<\/a><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>School of Education 4th year student Xolani Mathebula took a top 10 place at the competitive two-day Ethekwini Open Chess Championship earlier this year. More than 100 players competed in the A-section with another 90 players in the B-section. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/xolani-takes-gold-at-top-chess-championship\/\" class=\"read-more\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,4,57],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-9940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-news","category-news","category-spu-student-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10291,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9940\/revisions\/10291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9940"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=9940"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spu.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}