The Massachusetts contingent to the 2012 National Elementary Championship in Nashville this weekend was small but proud.

Four Massachusetts youngsters competed including:

Jason Tang, who secured a trophy for 14th place out of 255 competitors with 5.5 points (out of 7 rounds) in the K-3 Championship section.

Carissa Yip scored 5 points which merited a tied for 25th place trophy, also in the K-3 Championship section.

Benjamin Fauman, competing in the K-1 Championship, scored 5 points which earned him a trophy for 24th place out of 289 competitors.

Alex Fauman, competing in the K-5 Championship, scored 4 points for 94th place out of 284 competitors in that section.

Massachusetts' own Ken Ballou served as chief TD for the K3 championship section.

The 8 section tournament saw a total of over 2200 young chess players for the 3 day event.

Next April's "supernational" tournament in Nashville should draw at least 5000 scholastic chess players in the 20 section K through 12 event.  

Eric Fauman
Parent Contributor

The 2012 Spring Girls Chess Tournament took place on May 6th, 2012 at Embassy Suites hotel at Marlborough. It brought 16 girls from all over the state. Girls were competing in two sections: Open and Novice Under 700.

Open Section results:

1st - Jenny R Qiu of Acton with a perfect score 4 points

2nd - Lauren Smorgonsky of Worcester 1.5 points

3rd - Prakalya Chandrasekar of Ashland 1.5 points

2nd and 3rd place winners were decided on a tiebreak.

Novice Under 700 Section results:

5 players tied with 3 points for 1-5 places and winners were decided on a tiebreak.

1st - Kathleen Wang of Shrewsbury

2nd - Audrey E Gaines of Shrewsbury

3rd - Mary Mealdey Ings of Chestnut Hill

Medal winners:

4th - Shrunotra San of Ashland

5th - Sandra Shur of Agawam

The newcomer players were Maya Makarovsky of Newton and Olivia Romito of Natick.

Irina Dronova was the organizer and chief tournament director, assisted by Bob Messenger. 

Bob Messenger
Assistant TD

Bob Messenger
MACA Board Member

Bob Messenger
MACA Board Member

1st-2nd: Eddie Wang of Acton, Aaron Dunigan AtLee of Centerville, Edward Chiu of Brighton (also 1st U1000) and Alvin Tan of Westwood (also 1st U1000), 3.5-0.5 

George Mirijanian
MACA President

High School: Newton North...........................W. Huang, T. Rossi, J. Fauman, R. Han

Middle School: Diamond/Lexington..............M. Brattain, V. Amrit, D. Amirault, M. Jones

Elementary School: Gates/Acton..................A. Wang, D, Shih, E. Wang, A. H. Zhang

Primary School: Conant/Acton......................A. Yu, A. Ying, J. Cui, E. Zhong

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Top prize winner is in boldface.

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

K-12 Division: 10 teams

1st Wildcats [Weston HS]...3.5-0.5 [Saini, Lurie, Luzzi and Hedayat]...on tie-break over Chess Patriots [Wu, Qiu, Qiu and Wu]

K-5 Division: 4 teams

1st Four White Knights...4-0 [Kavi, Yin, Wang and Yang]

K-3 Division: 8 teams

1st R2SJ...3.5-0.5 [Randolph, Randolph, Shu and Jin]

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Run for a Spot on the MACA Board of Directors! 

George Mirijanian
MACA President

8U championship:

Jiaying 'Lucy' Cai, Lexington,...........................4-0

11U championship:

Evan Meyer, Newton,.......................................4-0

14U championship:

Mika Brattain, Lexington,................................3.5-0.5

High School championship:

Jacob Fauman, Newton, and James Lung, Lexington, both 3.5-0.5; James Lung won the blitz playoff.

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Dmitry Barash's State Singles Championship Statistics page has been updated here.

Tiffany Wang
MACA Webmaster

SPIEGEL CUP STATISTICS

In view of shortly forthcoming Spiegel Cup finals I decided to look at the history of those tournaments. Published on the Web (on MACA and USCF) cross tables go back to beginning of 90s (and the history perhaps goes even further), but the number of players varied a lot in 90s, for example at the end of 90s there were mostly 6 players in each age group. Note that in Maryland (where I lived for 7 years prior to moving to MA) the similar finals were called Sweet 16 (and obviously had 16 players per age). Ten seems to me to be the optimal number to exclude random players, and to include all the top ones.

Therefore I set the start point in 2001, since when there were constantly 10 players in each group (with couple exceptions during all 12 years).

It’s easy to notice that in all ages except 8&U tournaments became much stronger by the average rating.

Top Players by overall number of points and tournaments

Top players by the number of award winnings (only top 3 places count in each final)

ANDREW WANG            7            5 wins (!!!) and 2 second places (!) but he skipped two finals in 2007 and 2008

JAMES LUNG            6            Unique achievement: never was the champion but 6 times in a row (!) got trophies (one third place and 5 second places)

MIKA BRATTAIN            5            5 times in a row was awarded (2 wins, one second place and 3 third places)

WINSTON HUANG            5            6 participations in a row, and during the last 5 of them he got 2 first places and 3 third

JOSH BAKKER            4            2 wins, one second place and one third, but in the middle he was 5^th in 2004

MAX ENKIN            4            4 trophies in 4 participations: third place (2002), 2 second ones (2001, 2003), and a win (2007)

REILLY NATHANS            4            2 wins and 2 third places in 8 finals (2001-2007, 2009)

CHRIS WILLIAMS            4            2 wins and 2 third places in 8 consecutive tournaments (2001-2008)

Players, who won finals more than once:

ANDREW WANG            5

JOSH BAKKER            2

MIKA BRATTAIN            2

WINSTON HUANG            2

BARY LISAK            2

REILLY NATHANS            2

JACK STOLERMAN            2

CHRIS WILLIAMS            2

GRANT XU            2

FELIX YANG            2

No one of them played only twice. From interesting decisions the following should be mentioned:

- Bary Lisak played 3 times (2005-2006, 2009): 2 wins, then second place.

- Jack Stolerman played 3 consecutive times (2001-2003): two wins, then 4^th place.

- Grant Xu played 3 consecutive times (2009-2011): 10^th place and two next wins(!).

All others from the above list played at least 5 events.

If statistics talks only about the past, it is incomplete! Let’s try to predict the future based on the past results.

Obviously no one knows who will win this year finals, but we can look who has better chances. I divided each final into two parts by rating to see if the second half has any chances to win or at least to get trophies.

The chance to become a champion for a player from the second half is really small – it happened only twice in 44 finals! In 2007 Genesis LUNG, who was only 6-th by rating became a champion in 14&U.

In 2002 Daniel WITKE was the last 10-th by rating in 8&U but became the champion!

In all(!) other cases winners were from the first half.

But it’s quite possible to win a trophy for a lower rated player. In average two players from the second half won trophy (second or third place) each year out of 8 such trophies.

Note 1. I don’t have tie-breaks for 2006 and 2011 (all other tables were published on MACA page with places ordered by tie-breaks). I calculated the tie-breaks myself, hopefully I did it right.

Note 2. Although finalists were determined and pared by rating on February the 1^st(usually), I used their last rating before the tournament (the one used by USCF).

Dmitry Barash

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member

Qualifier 4 winners were the following:

8U...Maxwell Zhao of Bolton

11U...Alan Sikarov of Newton

14U...Bowen Wang of South Easton

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

The state finals are scheduled for 12 February 2012 at the Best Western/Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough.

For determining the top 6 rated in divisions 8U, 11U and 14U we are using the official February ratings.

These ratings will become 99.9% final on 7 January 2012 PRIOR to Qualifier #4. 

If you have questions pertaining to invitations you can address them to me at SFrymer@rcn.com.

The High School division is OPEN to any high school player under the age of 20. Any other eligibility questions will be decided by the MACA Scholastic Committee. 

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member