Grades K-1: Stefan Musikic goes 7-0

Of the 540 players in the four sections of the ICA K-8 Championships, only Stefan Musikic scored a perfect 7-0.  Stefan won the 86-player K-1 section by a full point over Nikolai Rhodes and Kelebrant Hays, each of whom scored 6-1, losing only to Musikic.  Aaron Gan, Emmanuel Antony, and Vishal Yelamanchili each scored 5½-1½ for equal fourth place.

Crosstable here!

Betsy Dynako and James Aman directed this section for Bubbacat Chess.  Chief TD for the whole schmeer was Wayne Clark, assisted by Keith Ammann.

Thanks to all who played, worked, parented, and volunteered at this event!

All Grade results (Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd)

Unofficial nose count was 505 players!

Kindergarten: Nikolai Rhodes scored a perfect 5-0; Huaye Jeffrey Lin took second with 4-1.

1st Grade: William Zhu swept the field 5-0; Ivan Mitkov, Aydin Turgut, and Noah Greenberg tied for second, again with 4-1.

In the 50-player 2nd Grade section, Jason Daniels and David Wallach tied for first with 5-0; Ricky Wang, Vishal Chandrasekar, Shreya Mangalam, Owen Power, Christopher Gora, and Stevan Kamatovic tied for third with 4-1.

Vincent Do (USCF rating of 1643!) won the 69-player 3rd Grade section with a perfect 5-0.  Nathaniel Sobery took clear second with an undefeated 4½-½.  Harrison He, Ranadheer Tripuranaeni, Eric Gan, Henry Curcio, Ishaar Ganesan, Allan Lopez, Ezra Boldizsar, Christopher Yang, and Brian Suganraj tied for third with 4-1

Tamara Golovey knows a little bit about teaching chess:

she was the first teacher of Boris Gelfand, who just led Israel to a 2010 Olympiad bronze

The younger players played in the school library

Deep study of the initial position pays dividends