At the North Alabama Team Scholastic Chess Tournament, a team from Liberty Middle School (on left) faces a team from Discovery Middle School. CONTRIBUTED/Scott Wilhelm

MADISON – Local chess teams from elementary, middle and high schools assembled for the North Alabama Team Scholastic Chess Tournament at Bob Jones High School on Feb. 18

This tournament “gives our local school teams the opportunity to practice playing in the 4×4 team format that will be used to declare the top teams at state,” Ranae Bartlett said. Bartlett is Executive Director of Madison City Chess League.

“The tournament also gives area chess coaches the opportunity to move players around and see how they perform on different boards,” Bartlett said. “Four-person teams are arranged with the top rated player on Board 1, second on Board 2, and so on.”

Bartlett thanked state representatives Mac McCutcheon and Mike Ball for sponsoring the tournament and Bob Jones staff for hosting. Bradley Denton was chief tournament director, assisted by Josh McClellan and Nitin Badhe.

These teams won top honors in Primary (K-3) Section:

* Rainbow Red (first) — Karsten Wallace, Caroline Wang, Marek Fries, Arnav Maskey.

* Rainbow Blue (second) — Xavier Bruni, Landon Drummond, Cameron Edwards, Monica Chynoweth.

* West Madison (third) — Haley Clark, Pranav Gentela, Konnor Hobbs, Brayden Webley.

* Columbia (fourth) — Isabelle Park, Songla Lee, Janardhan Vasireddy, Joseph Park.

* Horizon (fifth) — Cole Spanier, Mark Allison, Alex Fedoseyev, Lily Harper, Nirvana Rajbhandari.

* Top Female Team, Mill Creek Pink — Sahithi Mynampally, Anaya Naphade, Shriya Sethuraj, Isabel Xu.

These teams earned top places in Elementary (K-6) Section:

* Rainbow Gold (first) — Constance Wang, Victor Lundy, Geon Park, Zachary Calinsky.

* Mill Creek Red (second) — Ethan Xu, Rishi Sethuraj, Pranav Somu, Wyatt Devine.

* Rainbow Diamond (third) — Kennedy Gore, Amy Park, Rachael Ehrman, Amelia Dobbs.

* Rainbow Silver Team (fourth) — Ryan Shurtz, Luke Chynoweth, Ethan Kueck, Jonathan Yang.

* Madison Blue (fifth, tie) — Aasim Musani, Steven Pan, Shruti Kadam, Arjunsing Gaikwad.

* Mill Creek White (fifth, tie) — Harsha Matta, Cameron Baker, Alex Povorozniuc, Liam O’Sullivan.

Discovery and Liberty middle schools competed in Junior High (K-9) Section:

* Discovery Teal Team (first) — Josh Lin, Jenson Wilhelm, Hayden Billmann, Aubteen Pour-Biazar.

* Liberty Black Team (second) — Om Badhe, Will Fox, Sohan Mynampally, Carson Bolandd.

* Discovery White Team (third) — Will Bao, Will Cox, Maanasi Limaye, Edward Calinsky).

Bob Jones competed with Covenant Christian Academy in Open (K-12) Section:

* Bob Jones Blue (first) — Michael Guthrie, Douglas Zhang, Erin Kueck, Grace Billmann.

* Covenant Christian (second) — Joseph Quan, Sam Fellows, Kate Kornegay, Zachary Bardon.

* Bob Jones Red (third) — Mark Skrabanek, Hugh Mitchell, Aneesha Ankam.

“If you can compete in Madison, you can compete very well at the state level. We are ready!” Bartlett said.