Winter Knights Chess Tournament readies players for future contests

MADISON – Columbia Elementary School hosted a record-setting Winter Knights tournament with more than 150 registered players.

Over 50 players competed in the non-rated sections. “We were excited to see so many new players try their first chess tournament last weekend and happy to see award winners from every school,” Ranae Bartlett said. Bartlett is Executive Director of Madison City Chess League.

Todd Guthrie served as Chief Tournament Director. Nitin Badhe and Parag Saxena assisted Guthrie, along with Student Tournament Directors Puja Chopade, Shreya Sunil and Madhu Balaji. “We also want to thank our volunteer coaches for high-school chess teams: Aubteen Pour-Biazar, Thomas Nguyen, Om Badhe and Neha Chopade,” Bartlett said.

Tournament sponsor was 180 Leadership Coaching.

In the rated sections, 95 players competed. “Winter Knights used a longer time control in the rated sections to help our kids prepare for tournaments this spring that also use much longer time controls than the traditional 30-minute games in most scholastic tournaments,” Bartlett said.

The following students were winners in each section. Each list starts with the first-place winner, followed by place winners in descending order:

* K-2 Section winners — Jimmy McHugh, Elliott Poole, Avyaktha Subramania, Asher Allison, Alice Zou, John Park, Milan Malak, Charlie Saulters, Peter Gosier, Alex Cai. Annabelle Hsu – Top Female.

* 3-4 Section winners — Esteban Jerez, Kylie Zou, Emerson Phillips, Andrew Tkach, Daksh Sunil, Mason Park, Vedanth Siva, Theodore Piper. Abigail Barbre – Top Female.

* 5-6 Section winners — Sophia Jerez, Caden Jordan, Jethro Jones, Tim Lee, Genji Niinomi, Emma Kuang, John Chen. Anna Ai – Top Female.

* 7-8 Section winners — Nirvana Rajbhandari, Aadi Saxena, Andrew Yang, Artem Starenki, Nathan Chiu, Caroline Wang, Eddie Xiao, Isabelle Park, James Cairns, Cody Pohl.

* 9-10 Section winners — Steven Pan, Jason Park, Pranaav Satheesh, Caleb Chen, Zachary Calinsky, Swetha Jakka.

* 11-12 Section — Constance Wang, Edward Calinsky.

* Non-Rated Sections, K-3 — Tyler Pysh, Lucas He, Aryaa Sathees, Jackson Mayes, Noah Goerlich, Lilia Baker, Evgenii Eliseev, Arjun Sathees, Lauren Weisenberger, Yumito Okamoto, Pujita Verma, Alaina Lamar, Kyle Miller, Jackson Morgan. Harleigh-Monet Henderson – Top Female.

* Non-Rated Sections, K-5 — Dheeren Pammina, Riley Smith, Jackson Leonard, Will Tennille, Aidan Kuang, Zane Kerby, Declan Rosch, Isaac Villarreal, Ambrosse Pitts, Anderson Weisenberger. Rose Polpanich – Top Female.