Silver Knights Chess

USCF Rating Report

35 scholastic chessplayers competed in the 3rd Annual Greater Pocono Scholastic Championships. 12th-grader Alex Belkin of Pocono Mountain East HS won the championship section with a perfect 4-0 score. Pocono Mountain East, the host school, took the team championship with a score of 11 team points.

Colin Casey, an 8th-grader from Sparta Middle School, won the Under 1000 section, scoring 3.5-0.5. Sparta Middle School beat out Swiftwater Intermediate School by half a point to win the team prize in the Under 1000 section, scoring 6.5 points.

This tournament has gone from 20 players in 2007 to 32 players in 2008 to 35 players this year. We hope to have even more players next year, and look forward to the start of the regular tournament season in Philadelphia and Northern Virginia!

USCF Rating Report

On August 29, forty-six players competed in the August Blaze, our first chess tournament in Virginia. Top-seeded Kalyan Madanapalli (rated 1199), a 7th-grader from Rachel Carson Middle School, was the tournament champion, going 4-0 in his games and defeating the second and third seeds in the final two rounds. Tristan Ma, a 1st-grader from Forest Edge Elementary School, took first place in the unrated section, going 4-0 and then defeating 2nd-grader David Lin in a playoff game. Full standings are shown below.

Our next tournament in Virginia is the November Slam chess tournament, to be held Sunday, November 8, from 1:00 - 5:00 in McLean.

SwissSys Standings. August Blaze: K-8 Rated

SwissSys Standings. August Blaze: K-8 Unrated

First-grader Tristan Ma, the winner of the Unrated section, with his trophy.

USCF Rating Report

On August 21, 2009, 20 players competed in the 8th Friday Night Action tournament. The Open section was won by Rodion Rubenchik, who went 3.5 - 0.5. Five players went 2.5 - 1.5 to tie for second place. In the Under 1400 section, Xiaojun Xu scored 3.5 - 0.5 to win first. Yasavi Hari, a frequent competitor in Silver Knights Saturday tournaments, took home second place.

Our regular tournament site will be unavailable soon, so we are currently searching for a replacement site for the Friday Night Action tournaments starting in October.

USCF Rating Report

It was a clean sweep for Ithan Elementary School at the 2009 August Burn chess tournament, as 5th-grader Michael Sydnes scored 3.5/4 to win his second straight K-12 Championship section and raise his rating to a personal best of 1055. Michael will be going for a Silver Knights record when he attempts to win three straight K-12 Championship sections at the Fall Warm-Up tournament on October 3 in King of Prussia.

Ithan 3rd-grader Jacob Calamaro won the K-6 U/700 section, posting a score of 3.5/4. This was Jacob's first tournament win.

USCF Rating Report

Sixty–three players met on August 2nd in the 7th Holly Heisman Memorial Chess Tournament at the Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood.  The Open section was won by expert Gregory Nolan (4.5/5 points), with NMs Adam Weissbarth and Peter Minear tying for 2nd-3rd with a score of 4 – 1.  With a win over Michael Hwang in the final round, Tommy Guo clinched 1st place in the Under 1500 section with a 4.5-0.5 result.  Hwang and Chirag Ram tied for 2nd-3rd with a score of 4-1.  The K-8 Under 900 section featured the only perfect score, with Praneeth Ramesh going 4 – 0.  Ryan Schiller, playing in his first tournament, achieved a 3-1 score to earn 2nd place.

Not only was a lot of money raised for charity, but every student (and almost every participant) received a prize, so join us August 1, 2010, for the 8th Holly Heisman Memorial.