Silver Knights Chess

USCF Rating Report

Twenty-six chessplayers battled it out in the May Daze chess tournament in Collegeville, PA on May 17. For the first time in about a year, we made a change to our tournament format, adding a K-12 championship section and limiting the K-3 and 4-8 sections to players rated under 1000. In addition to giving high school chessplayers the opportunity to play in our tournaments, this also allows talented younger players to compete against higher-ranked opponents.

New Hope Academy 8th-grader Lucas Knight continued his strong play, winning the K-12 championship section with a 3-0 score. In the second round, Lucas won the key game of the tournament, defeating top-seeded William Thompson of Swiftwater Intermediate School.

In the 4-8 U/1000 section, all of the players were either rated 100 or unrated, as the higher-ranked players were in the K-12 championship section. Patrick Hyer of Eagleville Elementary won 3.5/4 to take 1st place, a great tournament debut for the previously unrated 4th-grader. Kaelan Kulishoff of Skippack and Eric Shao of Pocopson took 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, with 3-1 scores. Skippack Elementary, the host school, took 1st place in the team competition.

In the K-3 U/1000 section, 2nd-grader Jack Saunders of Skippack went 4-0 to capture 1st place. Ankur Bamezai of Pickering Valley and Edward Zhao of Pocopson went 3-1 to finish 2nd and 3rd. The team competition was extremely close, with Skippack (5.5 points) edging out Pocopson (5.0) to win.

Congratulations to Eagleville 1st-grader Kevin Zhou, who finished 5th in the nation in the K-1 age category this past weekend in Pittsburgh! Kevin played four opponents that were significantly higher rated than him and beat three of them on his way to a 6-1 score. He gained nearly 200 rating points, which is especially difficult to do at a national championship tournament because many of the players tend to be somewhat underrated. This is a great accomplishment, and we look forward to helping Kevin continue his success in the future.

Complete Results

USCF Rating Report 

Ninety-nine chessplayers competed in the 2007-2008 Greater Philadelphia Scholastic Championships, held on May 3 at the First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy.

Alex Belkin of Pocono Mountain East HS swept the High School Championship section with a score of 4-0, followed closely by Andrew Ding at 3.5/4. Pocono Mountain East dominated the team standings, finishing with 11 points, 5 ahead of 2nd-place New Hope Academy.

David Grigoryan and David Lakata tied for first place in the Middle School Championship section with scores of 4-1. Grigoryan took first place due to better tiebreaks. Murray Avenue School was the winning team with 6 team points.

In the Elementary Championship section, 3rd-grader Isuru Attanagoda of Virginia beat out Max Polichuk on tiebreaks to take first place. Both players scored 4-1. Isuru was the lowest-rated player in the entire section, making his victory even more remarkable.

Top-ranked Qinhong Chen, the Pennsylvania state K-3 champion, won the primary section with an undefeated 5-0 score.  State kindergarten champion and second seed Benjamin Lu took second, and Rishi Rajendran took third, both with scores of 4-1. Beaumont Elementary ran away with the team prize, scoring 11 team points. Both Qinhong and Benjamin are moving quickly up the national top 100 rating lists, and we have no doubt that they will continue to do so in the future.

Congratulations to Alex Belkin, David Grigoryan, Isuru Attanagoda, Qinhong Chen, and all the other players who competed in the tournament. We wish all the K-6 players good luck at nationals next week!

USCF Rating Report

Twenty-four chessplayers gathered at Skippack Elementary on April 12 in Collegeville, PA, for the Spring Rumble chess tournament. John Peterson went 4-0 to win his first K-3 section after several top-5 finishes. Clayton Johnson, Alexander Dornak, and Elijah Cooley went 3-1 to tie for second place. John, Clayton, and Pamela Guo won the team prize for Beaumont Elementary with 9.0 team points.

In the K-8 section, top seed Lucas Knight went 4-0 to win his first tournament. Ben Kenney and Zachary Zeelander, both of the Philadelphia School, went 3-1 to tie for second place. Kevin Zhou came in fourth with a score of 2.5. The Philadelphia School was top team with 6.0 team points.

USCF Rating Report

Forty chessplayers in grades K-8 competed in the April Showers chess tournament at Ithan Elementary School in Bryn Mawr. Joseph Donato of Ithan won a chaotic, upset-filled K-3 section with a 4-0 score. Joseph's victory was especially impressive because all four of his opponents won all of their other games. Seven players tied for second place at 3-1, with the trophies going to John Peterson of Beaumont Elementary (2nd), Jeremy Miller of Friends School Haverford (3rd), Clayton Johnson of Beaumont (4th), and Michael Sydnes of Ithan (5th). Ithan Elementary (12.0 team points) beat our Beaumont (9.0) for the top team prize.

In the K-8 section, the tournament was dominated by the top two seeds, Lucas Knight of New Hope Academy and David Arias of Media. Lucas and David won their first three games and drew each other in the fourth round. They were tied at 3.5 points each and 8.5 Modified Median tiebreak points, so it went to the Solkoff tiebreaker, which David won by a score of 10 to 9.5. Rounding out the top five with scores of 3-1 were Benjamin Seligsohn of Benchmark, Yasasvi Hari of Goodnoe Elementary, and Richard Wang of T/E Middle School. Eagleville Elementary was the top team.