News

March 11-12, 2017---Bob Jones High School in Madison, Alabama welcomed the State's top chess students to compete for individual and team awards over the weekend.  Once again, Madison chess teams demonstrated how hard work pays off as they swept all school team awards in both Primary and Elementary sections, retained their Jr High School championship, and even added Jr High and Open K-12 Club team championships on behalf of the Madison City Chess League.  It was a record-setting event for Madison chess students and their coaches.

The Primary and Elementary sections.  [All photos by Scott Wilhelm]

TEAM AWARDS

Primary (K-3) Team

The ACF awards three team trophies in the Primary School division.  For the second year in a row, the top two Primary teams came from Rainbow Elementary.  The 1st place team was Rainbow Red with 4 team points:  Ethan Van, Caroline Wang, Karsten Wallace and Xavier Bruni.  The 2nd place team was Rainbow Blue with 2.5 team points: Artem Starenki, Landon Drummond, Arnav Maskey, and Andrew Nguyen.  The 3rd place team was Horizon Elementary with 2.5 team points: Cole Spanier, Nirvana Rajbhandari, and Mark Allison.

    

The dominance of the Madison Primary teams can be seen in who followed the award winners.  Tied for 4th-7th place with two team points were: Mill Creek Elementary, Rainbow Yellow team, Columbia Ruby team, and West Madison Elementary.  The members of these Madison teams also participate in the MCCL All Star Chess program, now in its second year.

Elementary (K-6) Team

The ACF awards three team trophies in the Elementary School division.  For the fourth consecutive year, Rainbow Elementary won the 1st place team award, this time with the team of Geon Park, Constance Wang, Victor Lundy and Zachary Calinsky scoring a perfect 4 team points.  They were followed by two Madison teams who both achieved 3 team points.  On tie breaks, Heritage Elementary came in 2nd place with the team of Christopher Kang, Oviya Gowder, Jeremiah Yang, and Vallabh Busetty.  Columbia Elementary Diamond team won 3rd with members Sherwood Dong, Pranaav Satheesh, Puja Chopade, and Shreya Sunil.

  

Jr High (K-9) Team

In the Jr High (K-9) School Division, the ACF awards 1st and 2nd place team trophies.  For the third consecutive year, Discovery Middle School won the top Champion title with a perfect team score of 4 points.  Pictured (L to R) are:  Josh Lin, Jenson Wilhelm, Hayden Billmann, and Will Bao.  DMS was followed by Bumpus Middle School which won 2nd place with 3 team points.  Liberty Middle School narrowly missed a trophy and came in 3rd place with 2.5 team points.

In the Jr High (K-9) Club division, the ACF only awards a 1st place trophy.  The Madison City Chess League team comprised of four students from Discovery Middle School won first place for the first time.  Members of that team pictured (L to R): Will Cox and Edward Calinsky. Not pictured: Aubteen Pour-Biazar and Thomas Nguyen.  

Open (K-12)  Team

The Open (K-12) section contained the highest rated players representing both School and Club teams.  In the School Division, all members of the team must attend the same school.  In the Club Division, members can attend different schools.  For the first time, the Madison City Chess League won the Open (K-12) Club Division with the team of Om Badhe (LMS), Michael Guthrie (BJHS), Mohak Agarwalla (CRMS), and Lawrence Zhang (JCHS).  MCCL ended the way with 3.5 team points.  Indian Springs School won the School division 1st place trophy with 2.5 points.  Both teams are pictured below in their fourth round match up.

  

Indian Springs School (left) versus MCCL (right)

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS

In the Primary (K-3) section, MCCL members won four of the top five awards. Winning 1st place and the Primary Champion title with a perfect score of 5 points was Xavier Bruni.  Pulak Agarwalla won 2nd place with 4.5 points. There was an 11-way tie for third place with students all scoring 4 points.  On tie breaks, Ethan Van won 4th and Landon Drummond won 5th.  Also scoring 4 points and narrowly missing an award were:  Marek Fries, Andrew Nguyen, Sahithi Mynampally, Nisha Doppalapudi, Karsten Wallace, Artem Starenki, Hill McCluny and Caroline Wang.

In the Elementary (K-6) section, the title of Co-Champions was awarded to Sarvagna Velidandla and Constance Wang after their head-to-head match-up ended in a draw and they both ended the day with 4.5 points. Girl Power!  Geon Park won 3rd place, Hudson Markin won 4th place and Victor Lundy won 5th place.

In the 4th -6th Under 600 section, Catrina Holschen (Rainbow) won 1st place and Shruti Kadam (Madison Elem) won 3rd place.

In the K-8 Under 800 section, Hesham Shikhtholth (LMS) won 2nd, Luke Saurman (LMS) won 3rd, and Jacob Holland (DMS) won 4th place.

In the K-12 Under 1000 section, Hugh Mitchell (BJ) won 1st, Rachael Ehrman (Rainbow) won 2nd, and Grace Billmann (BJ) won 4th place.

In the K-8 Championship section, Will Fox (LMS) won 3rd, Om Badhe (LMS) won 4th, and Mohak Agarwalla (CRMS) won 5th.

Complete individual results can be found here.