MCS Fall Scholars sets record attendance
- The library at Madison Elementary School served as the playing room at the MCS Fall Scholars Tournament Bill Nash served as chief tournament director. CONTRIBUTED
MADISON – In its first time hosting a chess tournament, Madison Elementary School welcomed a record attendance for Madison City Schools (MCS) Fall Scholars Tournament.
The tourney on Oct. 15 was only open to MCS students. In four sections, 103 Madison students competed.
“Principal Melissa Mims, assistant principal Gerald Franks and Chess Team sponsor Karen Hartselle outdid themselves in creating the optimum environment,” Ranae Bartlett said. Bartlett is Executive Director of Madison City Chess League. “Every elementary, middle and high school in Madison had representatives.”
In the Championship section, the top two elementary finishers earned an opportunity to train with their middle school counterpart. Geon Park and Victor Lundy from Rainbow Elementary School will train with Discovery Middle School Chess Team.
Qualifiers for the 2017 City Chess Championship were Xavier Bruni (K-3); Victor Lundy and Ethan Xu (4-6); Josh Lin and Will Cox (7-8); and Michael Guthrie and Lawrence Zhang (9-12). They were top winners in their age groups in the Championship Section.
The tournament’s largest section was K-12 Under 900 Rated with 49 competitors. Caesar Lawrence served as floor tournament director. Top Ten winners, consecutively by place, were John Choung, first, Yashas Gentela, Luke Chynoweth, Oviya Gowder, Mark Skrabanek, Michael Nguyen, Christopher Kang, Jason Park, Wesley Gaddy, Wyatt Devine and top female Caroline Wang.
In Non-Rated K-3, the 23 students “continues a trend in Madison chess with more younger players introduced to the game,” Bartlett said. She was impressed by the youngest non-rated players attempting to notating their games, although not required.
“These students had been encouraged by their coaches to try recording,” she said. Because this was a non-rated section, chief tournament director Bill Nash explained that the USCF recording rule is required for all other competing students in rated sections.
Award winners in Non-Rated K-3 were Jacob New, first; Levi Smith, second; Mick Tyrrell, third; Andrew Nguyen, fourth; Holland Lang, fifth ; and Nirvana Rajbhandari, top female.
In that category, “the top four winners all had four points. Tie-break rules determined their finish. Holland and Nirvana both ended the day with 3.5 points, also a very impressive finish,” Bartlett said.
Floor directors for Non-Rated were Paul Mulqueen and Jim Spanier.
