US Chess/ChessKid Online Elementary Championship a Great Success!

What an event! The US Chess/ChessKid Online Elementary Championship took place over the weekend of August 8-9, 2020. The tournament was one of the largest online scholastic tournaments EVER!

More than 2,100 kids from Kindergarten to 6th grade, and from across the USA, participated in the tournament. Congratulations to all of the ChessKids who participated in this historic event! If you missed the live broadcast with FunMasterMike and GM Ben Finegold, here's day one and here's day two.

Two of the winners from the #USChessKid photo competition having fun!

The small delay in announcing the results is due to the diligent work that US Chess and ChessKid staff did in fair play review. In addition, a new US Chess rule says that online events may take up to three weeks to be rated. Thanks for your patience as we had to make sure that the event's results were certified and for tiebreaks to be calculated.

The full, final results in tiebreak order can be found here.

The Winners: 

K-1(A)

Section K-1(A) had 263 kids. Four kids tied for first, with an undefeated score of 6.5/7. Congratulations to Manish Kashyap of New Jersey, Sivavishnu Srinivasan of California, Rianna Tanna of California, and Evan Fan of Ohio.

Rianna's opponent resigned at the end of this game due to her commanding material advantage.

K-1(B)

Section K-1(B) had 262 kids. Two kids tied with a perfect score of 7.0/7. Congratulations to Scott Escalera of Illinois and Wenqiao Chen of Texas.

2-3(A)

Section 2-3(A) had 367 kids. The section had one perfect 7.0/7 score: Joshua Meng of Texas.

Joshua kept his cool under pressure and then won in the ending.

2-3(B)

Section 2-3(B) had 365 kids. Again the section had one perfect 7.0/7 score, Benny Le of Georgia.

4-5(A) 

Section 4-5(A) had 318 kids. Two kids tied with a perfect 7.0/7 score. Congratulations to Austin Tang of Oregon and Erin Brian of Washington.

4-5(B) 

Section 4-5(B) had 316 kids. The section had one perfect 7.0/7 score, Nathaniel Mullodzhanov of New York.

Nathaniel grinds out this hard fought game in round seven to take clear first.

6th Grade

This section had 156 kids but only one player got to 6.5/7: Zoey Tang of Oregon.

 Zoey shows off her tactical prowess to pull off this victory in the final round.

The rating report and a full overview of participants can be seen here: Event Summary.

US Chess and ChessKid were very happy to have hosted such a successful event. Only about 1% of games ended due to internet disconnection. ChessKid would like to thank the assistant director of events for US Chess, Pete Karagianis. The event would also not have been possible without US Chess tournament directors Glenn Panner, Saumik Narayanan, and Brian Yang. 

Why the Delay?

It is the unfortunate reality that any online chess event has the possibility of fair play violations. About a dozen kids violated the fair-play agreement for this online event. While any number of violations is too many, ChessKid is pleased that the vast majority of kids participated in the spirit of honesty and sportsmanship.

To ensure all fair-play violations are caught, online events will take longer to be rated than over-the-board tournaments. In fact, the new chapter 10 Internet Chess rules states that tournament directors now have up to three weeks to submit a rating report. We thank you all for your patience! 

Do you have a large event that you'd like to host virtually? Contact us at [email protected] and see how to make it happen!