Defending all-island champions Camperdown High maintained their cool and worked out a comfortable 3.5 to 0.5 win over Campion C to advance to the semi-finals of the 2008-09 RBTT Corporate Area Schools Chess Championship on Saturday.

Calabar High, Wolmer's Girls and Campion College A also advanced to the semi-final round, which will be played at RBTT's head office in New Kingston.

The feature match between Wolmer's Girls and Kingston College A lived up to its top billing as Wolmer's Girls displayed a high level of concentration, backed up by some well-thought moves, to come out with a 3-1 victory over the boys from North Street.

In the other Corporate Area quarter-final matches, Calabar trounced Campion B 4-0 and Campion A dismissed Kingston College B 4-0.

In semi-final action scheduled for this Saturday, Wolmer's Girls will face Camperdown and Calabar will challenge Campion.

Meanwhile, in rural area action, Clarendon College beat Titchfield High 4-0 to advance to the semi-finals.

In the quarter-finals, which took place last Thursday and Friday, Mannings shocked defending rural champions Glenmuir High 2.5 to 0.5 and St Catherine High had an easy 4-0 win over Cornwall College B.

Lightning chess match

The fourth quarter-final match, between Iona High and Montego Bay Community College (MBCC), ended 2-2 and MBCC's Sahir Abbas easily overcame Iona's Ashoni Shaw to take the tie-break lightning chess match 4-0.

In the rural semi-finals scheduled to take place during this week, Mannings High will face MBCC and Clarendon College match wits against St Catherine High.

- Keisha Hill