Students return to tables for Summer Knights Chess Tournament

MADISON –Madison City Chess League was thrilled to register more than 100 students in both Rated and Non-Rated sections of the 2020 Online Summer Knights Tournament.

“It’s always exciting to see kids play in their first tournament of the school year. And it’s great seeing our returning players dust off those cobwebs and get back into tournament play,” MCCL Executive Director Ranae Bartlett said.

Summer Knights offers the youth a low-pressure way of playing competitive chess, without filing of a ratings report. “We would like to thank our sponsor, CB&S Bank, for continuing to support the first tournament of the school year, which usually is held over-the-board at the end of August,” Bartlett said.

In Non-Rated Sections, these students earned top spots:

* Grades K-2 – First-place winner Esteban Jerez is a new member of chess team and a second-grader at Horizon Elementary School. Dennis Lenski, second; Avery Lewis, third; Raga Gowda, top female who otherwise did not place.

* Grades 3-5 – Sophia Jerez in first place is a Horizon fourth-grader and new recruit to chess team. Margaret Lin and James Hoogstra, second-place tie. Seamus Bonebright and Victor Stephenson, third-place tie.

* Grades 6-12 – First-place winner Sam Pratt, a senior at James Clemens High School, recently joined chess team. Aneesh Maruvada, Joshua Holt and Zachary Holt, second-place tie; Anjali Gottumukkala, top female.

This year, MCCL divided the Under 500 Section into two groups, K-5 and K-12:

* K-12 Under 500 — Esteban Jerez in first place “decided to ‘play up’ and challenge himself by competing in this section,” Bartlett said. Sai Mudium, second; Lachie Jones, third; Anaya Naphade, fourth; Conrado Jocson, fifth; and Sean Rowe, sixth.

* K-5 Under 500 – Horizon fourth-grader Sophia Jerez and Prahaas Avula, a fourth-grader at Mill Creek Elementary School, tied for first place. Nathan Dong and Alice Zou, third-place tie; Neel Gowda, fourth; Andrew Tkach, fifth; Daniel Tkach, Esinam Tettey and Shrabin Bista, sixth-place tie; and Cora Newberry, top female.

* K-12 Under 1000 – This section had the most participants with 29 students. Multiple ties resulted, even with tie breaks. Award winners are Holland Lang, first; Justin Yoon, second; Caroline Wang, third; Praneel Avula and Cooper Martin, fourth-place tie; Pranaav Satheesh and Sahithi Mynampally, sixth-place tie; and Christina Yang, Top Female.

* K-12 Open — The Open section had the highest rated players. Award winners are Victor Lundy, first; Nirvana Rajbhandari and Steven Pan, second-place tie; Shreya Sunil, third; Madhu Balaji, fourth; Josh Lin, fifth; sixth-place tie with Rachael Ehrman, Aadi Saxena, Sherwood Dong and Pranav Somu; and Constance Wang, Top Female.