News

The biggest scholastic chess tournament in Madison just got bigger as 172 students set another record for attendance at Mill Creek Elementary on Saturday, November 21st.  Students from every Madison elementary and middle school, as well as students from Decatur, Huntsville, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, and Nashville made this a very competitive event. Historically, the Elementary section was the largest, so this year it was divided into an Under 500 section and a 500+ section to make it more manageable and more meaningful for the competitors.  That resulted in the K-3 section being the largest with 64 registered students. 

It was exciting to see that the largest section was the K-3 section, affirming that chess is not only growing in popularity, but also capable of being played at a very young age.  Also exciting was the noticeable increase in the number of girls competing this year at the tournament.  The Madison City Chess League has been focusing on increasing the number of girls playing competitive chess.  This year it started a Girls Chess Night that meets weekly on Tuesday evenings, and it began awarding a Top Female Medal in every section of each tournament it hosts.  The photo below shows the girls who competed at Queen's Quest along with Girls Chess Coordinator Beena Chopade and MCCL Executive Director Ranae Bartlett.

Team Results

Here are the team results from the tournament by section:

Primary (K-3)

1st - Rainbow Elementary (18 pts)

2nd - Heritage Elementary (14.5 pts)

3rd - Mill Creek Elementary (11.5 pts)

4th - Blossomwood Elementary (10 pts)

5th - West Madison Elementary (8 pts)

Elementary (4th-6th Under 500)

1st - Rainbow Elementary (16.5 pts)

2nd - Columbia Elementary (14 pts)

3rd - Mill Creek Elementary (13.5 pts)

4th - Madison Elementary (12.5 pts)

5th - Heritage Elementary (9 pts)

Elementary (K-6 500+)

1st - Rainbow Elementary (15 pts)

2nd - Mill Creek Elementary (13 pts)

3rd - Columbia Elementary (10.5 pts)

4th - Heritage Elementary (5 pts)

Middle School (K-9)

1st - Liberty Middle School (14.5 pts)

2nd - Discovery Middle School (14 pts)

High School (K-12)

1st - Covenant Christian Academy (7 pts)

2nd - Bob Jones HS (5 pts)

Individual Results

The K-3 section was the largest with 64 registered students followed closely by the 4th-6th Under 500 section with 59 students.  Because these sections were so large, individual award winners had to achieve at least 3.5 out of 5 points to receive a medal or trophy.  In the K-6 500+ section and Middle School and High School sections, 3 points was sufficient to receive an individual award.  Three sections had students achieve perfect scores of 5.0:  Om Badhe (K-6 500+), Christopher Foote (4th-6th Under 500), Perri Larkin (4th-6th Under 500), Geon Park (K-3) and Luke Chynoweth (K-3).

Primary (K-3) winners were:  Geon Park (1st), Luke Chynoweth (2nd), Christopher Wang (3rd), Oviya Gowder (4th), Zachary Calinsky (5th), Ashton Springfield (6th), Vallabh Busetty (7th), Xavier Bruni (8th), Caroline Wang (9th), Nicholas Koukos (10th).  Tied with 3.5 pts were Andrew Bendickson (11th) and Emma Roap (12th).  Top female medal:  Sahithi Mynampally.

4th-6th Under 500 winners were:  Christopher Foote (1st), Perri Larkin (2nd), Ethan Kueck (3rd), John Choung (4th), Wyatt Devine (5th), Justin Diehl (6th), Yuti Das (7th), Ryan Shurtz (8th), Isaac Pollard (9th), Alexander Herrin (10th), Neil Sethi (11th), and Jamie Matthews (12th).  Top female medal:  Megan Danh.

K-6 500+ winners were:  Om Badhe (1st), Jenson Wilhelm (2nd), Victor Lundy (3rd), Constance Wang (4th), Edward Calinsky (5th), Boone Ramsey (6th), Mohak Agarwalla (7th), Rishi Sethuraj (8th), Sherwood Dong (9th), Pranaav Satheesh (10th), Ethan Xu (11th), Christopher Kang (12th), Dustin Springfield (13th).  Top female medal:  Puja Chopade.

Middle School winners were:  Lawrence Zhang (1st), Michael Guthrie (2nd), Joshua Lin (3rd), Christopher Baker (4th), Joel Friedman (5th).  Top female medal:  Aneesha Ankam.

High School winners were:  Owen Phillips (1st), Douglas Zhang (2nd), and Mitch Bedard (3rd). 

Complete team and individual results can be viewed here.

City Chess Championship Qualifiers

Queen's Quest also was the second qualifier for the 1st Annual City Chess Championship scheduled to occur in March 2016.  The students who qualified were the top two finishers at Queen's Quest who had not previously qualified at the Fall Scholars Tournament that occurred in August.  Qualifying at Queen's Quest were:

Primary:  Luke Chynoweth and Oviya Gowder

Elementary:  Om Badhe and Jenson Wilhelm

Middle School:  Lawrence Zhang and Chris Baker

High School:  Douglas Zhang

The next opportunity to qualify for the City Chess Championship will be on January 8 and 9, 2016 during the Winter Knights tournament to be held at Columbia Elementary.  Winter Knights will use a longer time control:  Game 60/d5.  You can learn more about Winter Knights and register by following this link.