Zac was awarded his coaching scholarship at Gardiner Chess after his performance in the 2005 Primary Schools Championships, held at Carrara Stadium on the Gold Coast.

Zac first started playing chess just before he went blind, long enough to learn what the pieces looked (and felt) like and how to move them. 

Zac's ability to "see" the game and a play-to-win attitude have been instrumental in his advancement through coaching.  

Gardiner Chess has been very pleased to have the opportunity to sponsor Zac in his chess. He showed great promise when we first saw him taking part in an interschools comp around three years ago. Since then he has been coached by Women’s International Master Alexandra Jule, and taken part in our Junior Masters competition each term. He has also taken part in some after school chess which includes rapid chess.

The Junior Masters competition involves long games with plenty of time to think, which suits Zac. We have seen him improve steadily from the early stages when he was making occasional, frustrating errors which cost him many wins. But he never lost heart, and now plays at a high standard against the top juniors in the Gold Coast region, some of whom are Australian Champions.

It is interesting that when he has played rapid chess, with all moves having to be made in 10 minutes, Zac refused to receive any extra time allowance for the extra time it took him to hit his clock, and to ascertain his opponent’s move, resulting in him losing many games on time, where he was winning on the board. This meant that his Queensland Junior Rating was held back for some considerable time.

It was also interesting when Zac participated in the Gold Coast Open, and had to play seven two hour games over two days, he reported that he was totally physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the weekend from the concentration required.

Graeme Gardiner
Gardiner Chess