Chess News Provided by The Massachusetts Chess Association

03/22/2026: Prize winners at the Hurvitz Cup

Prize winners at the Hurvitz Cup, held March 22nd in Marlborough, Mass. The Hurvitz Cup is the Massachusetts scholastic team championship.

Grades K-12 Section

1st Acton-Boxborough Regional High School A (Eric Feng, Vihaan Jain, Bohan Wang, Pragyan Sriram) 4-0

2nd Boston University Academy (Kelsey Liu, Armaan Mehta, Anton Stark, Sam Fisher, Jack Conway) 3-0

3rd Commonwealth (Ryan Sun, Ethan Qian, Jate Greene) 2.5-1.5

Top Booster Team (Under 1500) Arlington High School (Yunze Owen Ji, Ari Ushomirsky, Kairav Thiagarajah, Pedro Diaz-Terra) 2-2

Medals: Victor Feng, Ray Xue, Dhairya Mehta, Lucas Keefe, Warren Zha, Harry Li, Pragyag Karthik

Grades K-8 Section

1st Diamond Middle School (Shawn Xu, Emma Zhang, Evan Banerjee, Viraj Rastogi) 4-0

2nd Lex Clarke Middle School (Felix Wu, Frank Cao, Christine Nguyen, Brooks Jiang) 3-1

3rd Wellesley Middle School (Andrew Liu, Connor Liu, Ryan Xiao, Ishaan Ajmera) 2.5-1.5

Top Booster Team (Under 1100) Stony Brook School (Kenisro Viyani, Ansh Yadav, Sahil Manghani, Chinmay Maheshwari) 2-2

Medals: Yuze Luke Ji, Moksha Hasti, Ashwath Srinivasan

Grades K-5 Section

1st Hastings Elementary School (Ella Zhang, Ryan Liang, Linru He, Raymond Cen) 4-0

2nd-4th Conant Challengers (Saksham Chaudhary, Rendi Wu, Ruhaan Chaudhary, Samarth Chaudhary),

Crisafulli (Vihaan Panse, Vyom Kolhe, Maedha Naluvala, Haransh Singh),

Mitchell School (Owen Zhu, Wesley Eng, Ellery Levy, Henry Bourque) 3-1

Top Booster Team (Under 400) Concord Willard (Jack Loncto, Alex Gosset, Jonah Rogers, Alexander Akinshyn),

Cabot Elementary School (Benjamin Bernstein, Oliver Litthi, Clark Litthi, Kejun Pan) 2-2

Medals: Aaron Wang, Kashyap Srinivasan, Zane Engberg, Vansh Sripathi, Aaryas Palaparthi, Xander Sherman, Ella Ly,

Vivaan Gowda, Nolan Huang, Greyson Park, Vihaan Maharajan, Patrick Jao

Grades K-3 Section

1st Bridge Elementary School Team 3 (Shaurya Mehendiratta, Phoenix Cambron, Yunshen Zhou, Ethan Niu) 4-0

2nd-3rd Bowman Elementary School (Connor Guo, Max Liu, Anthony Fan, Luke Liu),

Carlisle Firehawks (Ella Chan, Jordy Shoulders, Aaron Woods, Harry Schoff) 2.5-1.5

Top Booster Team (Under 300) Carlisle Mighty Dinos (Ray Barsky, Liam Kelly, Evan Chan, Zoey Mokhtar) 1.5-2.5

Medal: Gaochunxi Li

Tied teams are listed in tiebreak order.

The tournament was directed by Bob Messenger, Larry Gladding, Dima Barash, Rishi Devata, and Nick Sterling.

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

03/21/2026: Advance entries for the Hurvitz Cup, final

Team Roster and Standings. Hurvitz Cup: Grades K-12 Section

Code Name Score TBrk[U] TBrk[G]

1 ABRHSA Acton-Boxborough Regional H.S. A (2142.3) 0.0 0 0

Eric Z Feng (2330) 0.0

Vihaan Jain (2224) 0.0

Bohan Wang (2118) 0.0

Pragyan Sriram (1897) 0.0

2 BELMOA Belmont High School A (1939.3) 0.0 0 0

Jerry Chen (2056) 0.0

Ben Palmer (2029) 0.0

Harry Li (1984) 0.0

Rohan Licht (1688) 0.0

3 LEXING Lexington High School (1922.8) 0.0 0 0

Raymond S Xu (2175) 0.0

Victor Feng (2124) 0.0

Brandon Ni (1978) 0.0

Holden Cassity (1414) 0.0

4 BELMOB Belmont High School B (1900.0) 0.0 0 0

Zhuoyuan Du (1979) 0.0

Nathan Klempf (1907) 0.0

Maxim Klempf (1877) 0.0

Ray Xue (1837) 0.0

5 HOPKIN Hopkinton High School (1832.5) 0.0 0 0

Dattasai Kilari (2201) 0.0

Dhairya Mitul Mehta (2147) 0.0

Sherwin Hu (1502) 0.0

Prayag Karthik (1480) 0.0

6 BUACAD Boston Universiity Academy (1735.0) 0.0 0 0

Kelsey Liu (2115) 0.0

Armaan Mehta (1894) 0.0

Anton Y Stark (1473) 0.0

Sam Peter Fisher (1458) 0.0

Jack Conway (unr.) 0.0

7 BROOKL Brookline High School (1734.5) 0.0 0 0

Alexander Golosovke (2130) 0.0

Zach Ellinor (1930) 0.0

Mengyuan Niu (1593) 0.0

John Gerald Avery (1285) 0.0

8 NOBLEG Noble and Greenough School (1477.5) 0.0 0 0

Alexander Meng (2112) 0.0

Jeffrey Liu (1625) 0.0

Ben Nguyen (1469) 0.0

Lucas Keefe ( 704) 0.0

Ninamdi Nigel Acheb (unr.) 0.0

9 COMMON Commonwealth (1392.5) 0.0 0 0

Ryan Sun (2417) 0.0

Ethan Qiao (1842) 0.0

Jate Aaron Greene (1211) 0.0

Filler-2 (* 100) 0.0

10 ARLING Arlington High School (1390.0) 0.0 0 0

Yunze Owen Ji (2224) 0.0

Ari Matthew Ushomir (1546) 0.0

Kairav Thiagarajah (1090) 0.0

Pedro Diaz-Terra (* 700) 0.0

11 STSEBA St. Sebastian's School (1026.8) 0.0 0 0

Killian Cunjak (1707) 0.0

Oisin Asaad (* 700) 0.0

Felix Cressotti (* 900) 0.0

Finn Govender (* 800) 0.0

12 ABRHSB Acton-Boxborough Regional H.S (1020.0) 0.0 0 0

Kevin Li (1565) 0.0

Aditya Narayan (1430) 0.0

Chasen Hu ( 543) 0.0

Warren Zha (* 542) 0.0

13 ASHLAN Ashland High School (493.0) 0.0 0 0

Kaiya Bridget Smits (1472) 0.0

Gautham Shenoy (* 200) 0.0

Aarov Pota (* 150) 0.0

Arhaan Siddiqi (* 150) 0.0

Arham Patel (* 150) 0.0

Om Pandya (* 150) 0.0

Team Roster and Standings. Hurvitz Cup: Grades K-8 Section

	Code	Name	Score	TBrk[U]	TBrk[G]
1	LEXCLA	Lex Clarke Middle School (1919.3)	0.0	0	0
		Felix Wu (2025) 0.0
		Frank Zhongti Cao (1962) 0.0
		Christine Nguyen (1876) 0.0
		Brooks Jiang (1814) 0.0
		Azim Faisal (1571) 0.0
2	DIAMON	Diamond Middle School (1876.0)	0.0	0	0
		Shawn Xu (2195) 0.0
		Emma Linyue Zhang (1896) 0.0
		Evan Banerjee (1724) 0.0
		Viraj Rastogi (1689) 0.0
3	RJGREY	R J Grey (1361.0)	0.0	0	0
		Karanbir Singh (1714) 0.0
		Athena Zuckerberg (1537) 0.0
		Moksha Varma Hasti (1411) 0.0
		Alex W Song ( 782) 0.0
4	OTTOSO	Ottoson Middle School (1296.0)	0.0	0	0
		Charles Huang (2102) 0.0
		Yuze Luke Ji (2009) 0.0
		Hunter Mukherjee ( 705) 0.0
		Aram Ashot Papoyan ( 368) 0.0
5	WELLES	Wellesley Middle School (1215.3)	0.0	0	0
		Andrew X Liu (1830) 0.0
		Connor Xiang Liu (1600) 0.0
		Ryan Na Xiao (1031) 0.0
		Ishaan Ajmera (* 400) 0.0
6	STAR1	Star Academy 1 (1036.3)	0.0	0	0
		David Figelman (1405) 0.0
		Anton Poliannikov (1166) 0.0
		George Koren ( 797) 0.0
		Murat Aguzarov ( 777) 0.0
		David Koren ( 436) 0.0
7	STONYB	Stony Brook School (1024.0)	0.0	0	0
		Kenisro Princeton Viyani (1812) 0.0
		Ansh Yadav (1132) 0.0
		Sahil Manghani ( 752) 0.0
		Cihinmay Maheshwari (* 400) 0.0
8	CLARKE	Clarke Middle School (992.8)	0.0	0	0
		Aanya Ritesh Tichkule (1103) 0.0
		Aarav Sundarkar (1069) 0.0
		Vaishav Padwalkar (* 900) 0.0
		Ashwath Srinivasan ( 899) 0.0
9	RAMS1	Robert Adams Middle School 1 (920.0)	0.0	0	0
		Dylan Dimmick (1245) 0.0
		Varun Vairavan Ashok (1244) 0.0
		Vihaan Patel ( 707) 0.0
		Donald Gracie ( 484) 0.0
10	MCCALL	McCall Middle School (685.3)	0.0	0	0
		Levon Meade Werner (1085) 0.0
		Griffen Garg ( 756) 0.0
		Alexander Bronski (* 500) 0.0
		John Alexander Dumont (* 400) 0.0
11	FENN	The Fenn School (429.0)	0.0	0	0
		Aaryash Kumar ( 699) 0.0
		Bennett Smigler ( 402) 0.0
		Milo Rice ( 308) 0.0
		Graham Smigler (* 307) 0.0
12	RAMS2	Robert Adams Middle School 2 (364.5)	0.0	0	0
		Brennan Carroll ( 487) 0.0
		Ayen Hemaratne ( 395) 0.0
		Roman Pozhidaev ( 334) 0.0
		Declan Carroll ( 242) 0.0

Team Roster and Standings. Hurvitz Cup: Grades K-5 Section

	Code	Name	Score	TBrk[U]	TBrk[G]
1	HASTIN	Hastings Elementary School (1074.8)	0.0	0	0
		Ella Xinyue Zhang (1855) 0.0
		Ryan Liang (1731) 0.0
		Linru He ( 513) 0.0
		Raymond Cen (* 200) 0.0
2	CONANC	Conant Challengers (692.5)	0.0	0	0
		Saksham Chaudhary (1049) 0.0
		Rendi Wu ( 626) 0.0
		Ruhaan Chaudhary ( 567) 0.0
		Samarth Chaudhary ( 528) 0.0
3	CRISAF	Crisafulli (660.5)	0.0	0	0
		Vihaan Panse (1001) 0.0
		Vyom P Kolhe ( 800) 0.0
		Maedha Naluvala ( 641) 0.0
		Haransh Singh (* 200) 0.0
4	HARRIN	Harrington Elementary School (586.0)	0.0	0	0
		Joowan Shin ( 734) 0.0
		Noah Narang ( 647) 0.0
		Nolan Wu Huang ( 513) 0.0
		Kashyap Srinivasan ( 450) 0.0
5	MILLER	Miller Elementary School (525.5)	0.0	0	0
		Aaron Wang (1419) 0.0
		Mihika Sinhara (* 300) 0.0
		Greyson Miles Park ( 282) 0.0
		Dryden Stefanelli ( 101) 0.0
6	GATES	Paul P Gates Elementary School (518.0)	0.0	0	0
		Aaryas Palaparthi (1160) 0.0
		Vivaan Mahesh Gowda ( 533) 0.0
		Aarnik Mitra ( 190) 0.0
		Vijayajahnavi Lingam (* 189) 0.0
7	BROADM	Broadmeadow School (490.5)	0.0	0	0
		Xander Sherman ( 794) 0.0
		Ella Ly ( 598) 0.0
		Leopold Seegert ( 346) 0.0
		Daniel Piatkov ( 224) 0.0
		Niam Khaitan (unr.) 0.0
8	CARLIS	Carlisle (481.8)	0.0	0	0
		Zachary Mokhtar ( 800) 0.0
		Nana Chan ( 669) 0.0
		Shippen Pattison-Vieira ( 234) 0.0
		Vansh Sripathi ( 224) 0.0
9	MIITCH	Mitchell School (480.8)	0.0	0	0
		Owen Zhu ( 657) 0.0
		Wesley Eng ( 648) 0.0
		Ellery Levy ( 360) 0.0
		Henry George Bourqu ( 258) 0.0
10	BRIDG2	Bridge Elementary School Team 2 (402.7)	0.0	0	0
		Quasar Cambron ( 511) 0.0
		Haris Ahmad Janisar ( 397) 0.0
		Logan Lau (* 300) 0.0
11	CABOT	Cabot Elementary School (377.5)	0.0	0	0
		Benjamin Bernstein ( 528) 0.0
		Oliver Litthi ( 489) 0.0
		Clark Litthi ( 293) 0.0
		Kejun Pan (* 200) 0.0
12	FESSEN	Fessenden (376.5)	0.0	0	0
		Brady Xu Anzivino ( 970) 0.0
		Cameron Anzivino ( 331) 0.0
		Elliott Gao ( 105) 0.0
		Filler-1 (* 100) 0.0
13	WILLAR	Concord Willard (365.5)	0.0	0	0
		Jack Loncto ( 562) 0.0
		Alex Gosset (* 400) 0.0
		Jonah Rogers (* 300) 0.0
		Alexander Akinshyn (* 200) 0.0
14	BRIDG1	Bridge Elementary School Team 1 (360.5)	0.0	0	0
		Yunbo Zhou ( 589) 0.0
		Keshav Raghavendra Adiga ( 530) 0.0
		Azlan Javed (* 200) 0.0
		Kinan Shawer ( 123) 0.0
		Kabir Patel (* 122) 0.0
15	TCONAN	Team Conant (219.0)	0.0	0	0
		Adhvik Senthil Kuma ( 519) 0.0
		Shourya Peddi ( 120) 0.0
		Tara Raajan (* 119) 0.0
		Amay Kumar (* 118) 0.0
16	CONPOL	Acton Conant Polar Bears (218.7)	0.0	0	0
		Vikram Singh ( 229) 0.0
		Aidan Loureiro (* 227) 0.0
		Vihaan Maharajan (* 200) 0.0
		Nikhil Pillai (unr.) 0.0
17	THOREA	Concord Thoreau (103.5)	0.0	0	0
		Grant Peterson ( 105) 0.0
		Milan Gaffron (* 104) 0.0
		Zane Engberg (* 103) 0.0
		Sebastian Magina (* 102) 0.0

Team Roster and Standings. Hurvitz Cup: Grades K-3 Section

	Code	Name	Score	TBrk[U]	TBrk[G]
1	MASONR	Mason-Rice Elementary School (379.0)	0.0	0	0
		Gaochunxi Li ( 916) 0.0
		Aashvi D Choudhary (* 300) 0.0
		Ariella Weinograd (* 200) 0.0
		Filler-3 (* 100) 0.0
2	BOWMAN	Bowman Elementary School (347.3)	0.0	0	0
		Connor Guo ( 725) 0.0
		Max Liu (* 300) 0.0
		Anthony Fan (* 200) 0.0
		Luke Liu ( 164) 0.0
3	BRIDG3	Bridge Elementary School Team 3 (326.8)	0.0	0	0
		Shaurya Mehendiratt ( 380) 0.0
		Phoenix Cambron ( 374) 0.0
		Yunshen Zhou ( 307) 0.0
		Ethan Maomao Niu ( 246) 0.0
		Patrick Jao (* 100) 0.0
4	CARFIR	Carlisle Firehawks (276.3)	0.0	0	0
		Ella Chan ( 413) 0.0
		Jordy L Shoulders ( 284) 0.0
		Aaron Woods ( 262) 0.0
		Harry Schoff ( 146) 0.0
5	CARDIN	Carlisle Mighty Dinos (185.8)	0.0	0	0
		Ray Barsky ( 274) 0.0
		Liam Kelly (* 100) 0.0
		Evan Chan ( 257) 0.0
		Zoey Mokhtar ( 112) 0.0

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

03/15/2026: Prize winners at the Gus Gosselin Grade Championship

Prize winners at the Gus Gosselin Grade Championship, held March 15th in Wakefield, Mass.

Grades 9-12

1st-2nd Bohan Wang, Oskar Zoffer 3.5-0.5

3rd/Top 9th Grade, Venkat Devata (playoff winner), Advaith Vijayasankaran 3-1

Grade 8

1st-2nd Dylan Dimmick, Viraj Rastogi 3.5-0.5

3rd Max Breyt 2-2

Grade 7

1st Christine Nguyen 4-0

2nd-3rd Mika Jafarov, Sergei Zanozin 3-1

Grade 6

1st Karanbir Singh 3.5-0.5

2nd-3rd Adhvik Kantamneni, Aanya Tichkule 3-1

Grade 5

1st Jasper Guo 4-0

2nd Aaron Wang 3.5-0.5

3rd-5th Saksham Chaudhary, Vyom Kolhe, Xiaozhou Yu 3-1

Grade 4

1st-2nd Krish Sardana, Yashmit Rastogi 3.5-0.5

3rd-4th Jack Chen, Barrett Ream 2.5-1.5

Grade 3

1st Jacob Mishuris 4-0

2nd-4th Aaryash Palaparthi, Xander Sherman, Rory Heyman 3-1

Grade 2

1st Dhanvanth Prem Kumar 4-0

2nd-3rd Rendi Wu, Felix Gutmanovich 3-1

Grades K-1

1st Rishaan Negi (CT) 4-0

2nd-6th Vihaan Gupta (MA), Eli Lantsman (K), Rushank Shringarpure, Leonard Guo, Zev Kaufman 3-1

Top Kindergarten Vedansh Vellanki 2.5-1.5

Except as noted, tied players are listed in tiebreak order.

The tournament was directed by Bob Messenger, Larry Gladding, Dima Barash, and Nick Sterling.

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

02/22/2026: Prize winners at the 3rd Spiegel Cup Qualifier

Prize winners at the 3rd Spiegel Cup Qualifier, held February 22nd in Wakefield, Mass.

Grades 6-8 Section

1st Alexander Li 4-0

2nd-5th Kenisro Viyani, Maitreya Ganguly, Yize Edward Zhao, Mika Jafarov 3-1

Grades K-5 Section

1st Yashmit Rastogi 4-0

2nd-3rd Jasper Guo, Krishna Santhosh Kumar 3-1

Grades K-3 Section

1st Chloe Shen 3.5-0.5

2nd Nirav Gandikota 3-1

3rd-6th Aaryash Palaparthi, Leonard Guo, Rendi Wu, Ranav Dinesh 2.5-1.5

Reserve Under 1200 Section

1st Hunter Krause 4-0

2nd Brady Anzivino 3-1

3rd Murat Aguzarov 2.5-1.5

Reserve Under 900 Section

1st-2nd Davud Shirzadov, Aaryash Kumar 3.5-0.5

3rd Vihaan Patel 3-1

Reserve Under 600 Section

1st-2nd Aarav Saxena, Xiaozhou Yu 3.5-0.5

3rd-5th Rush Shringarpure, Morrice Nathenson Steier, Oliver Litthi 3-1

Reserve Under 300 Section

1st-4th Eli Lantsman, Aarnik Mitra, Clark Litthi, Vivaan Harikrishnan 3-1

Tied players are listed in tiebreak order.

The tournament was directed by Bob Messenger, Larry Gladding, Dima Barash, and Venkat Devata, assisted by Nick Sterling and Parinya Jain.

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

02/16/2026: GM & Medford MA Resident Zhou Sets 158-Game Unbeaten Record

GM Zhou Jianchao’s amazing unbeaten run ended last weekend after 158 classical games, but not before breaking the previous 155-game unbeaten record, set by GM Bogdan Lalic in 2010-2011.

Zhou was only 17 when he became China's 21st Grandmaster. He moved to Medford, MA in 2024 and now represents the US. He is currently the 19th highest ranked player in America.

Here is a position from a quick 23-move win by Zhou during his 158-game unbeaten streak. Black (Zhou) to play and win. The answer, plus the complete game and more about Zhou and his new record appears in this Chess.com article.

Posted by: Michael Urbonas, 2/17/2026

h/t: George Mirijanian!

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

02/8/2026: Prize winners at the Winter Team Challenge

Prize winners at the Winter Team Challenge, held February 8th in Framingham, Mass.

Under 1800 Section

1st-2nd We Are FMCA (Franklin Lewis, Shouri Mosaliganti, Yize Edward Zhao, Johnathon Yu),

The Quiet Movers (Soumili Dey, Karanbir Singh, Athena Zuckerberg, Moksha Hasti) 3.5-0.5

3rd KNJD (Kenisro Viyani, Neel Parwani, Jacob Mishuris, Dhanvanth Prem Kumar) 3-1

Top Under 1400 CrazyBishops (David Vidrevich, Isaac Marks, Sanav Chakraborty, Sudheeksha Sanghishetty),

Funky Owls A (Kaiya Smits, Aaron Wang, Daniel Zheng, Avin Hemaratne) 1-3

Under 900 Section

1st Star Academy 1 (David Figelman, Anton Poliannikov, Murat Aguzarov, Jacob Zalataev) 4-0

2nd-3rd Funky Owls B (Varun Ashok, Dylan Dimmick, Vihaan Patel, Mandy Liu),

Unexpected (Esther Arolovitch, Leonard Guo, Jeffrey Herschbergstiles, Roman Kalashnikov) 2.5-1.5

2nd-3rd/Top Under 700 BananaMan (Nicholas Djanikan, Alexander Ciccarone, Leo Regnier, Mark Gutner) 2.5-1.5

Medals: Holden Xu, Alexander Chung, Sebastian Porte, Harshith Mekala, Jayden Zhou, Brady Anzivino, Samarth Chaudhary

Under 500 Section

1st SWAN (Hovannes Sargent, Morrice Nathenson Steier, Michael Agajanyan, William Wang, Fredrik Nathenson Steier) 4-0

2nd-3rd Chess Heroes 2 (William Li, Mason Ripley, Aadvik Bijoy, Harman Singh),

Needham Middle School (Adrian Deych, Kyrill Bogdanov, Tima Kalashnikov, Louis Chang) 3-1

Top Under 250 RSM Belmont 2 (William Vercoglio, Henry Bourque, Elias Huang, Paolo Passamonti) 2.5-1.5

Medals: George Koren, Wesley Eng, Sanjeev Sivaraman, Ella Ly, Oliver Caccavaro, Owen Zhu, Aaryash Kumar, Malcolm Foster, David Koren,

Leopold Seegert, Eli Lantsman, Sultan Sakhapov, Michael Liu, Natanel Ben-David

Tied teams are listed in tiebreak order.

The tournament was directed by Bob Messenger, Colin Scheriff, Dima and Anton Barash, Venkat Devata, and Nick Sterling

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

02/3/2026: Advance entries for the Winter Team Challenge, final

Team Roster and Standings. Winter Team Challenge: Under 1800 Section

	Code	Name	Score
1	KNJD	KNJD (1578.0)	0.0
		Kenisro Princeton Viyani (1750) 0.0
		Neel Parwani (1582) 0.0
		Jacob Mishuris (1536) 0.0
		Dhanvanth Prem Kumar (1444) 0.0
2	QUIETM	The Quiet Movers (1567.3)	0.0
		Soumili Dey (1752) 0.0
		Karanbir Singh (1696) 0.0
		Athena Zuckerberg (1451) 0.0
		Moksha Varma Hasti (1370) 0.0
3	CRAZYB	CrazyBishops (1318.5)	0.0
		David Vidrevich (1485) 0.0
		Isaac Marks (1364) 0.0
		Sanav Chakraborty (1357) 0.0
		Sudheeksha Sanghishetty (1068) 0.0
4	FUNOWA	Funky Owls A (1177.8)	0.0
		Kaiya Bridget Smits (1434) 0.0
		Aaron Wang (1330) 0.0
		Daniel Zheng (1099) 0.0
		Avin Hemaratne ( 848) 0.0

Team Roster and Standings. Winter Team Challenge: Under 900 Section

	Code	Name	Score
1	FUNOWB	Funky Owls B (877.0)	0.0
		Varun Vairavan Ashok (1234) 0.0
		Dylan Dimmick (1225) 0.0
		Vihaan Patel ( 849) 0.0
		Mandy Liu (* 200) 0.0
2	STAR1	Star Academy 1 (868.3)	0.0
		David Figelman (1234) 0.0
		Anton Poliannikov (1162) 0.0
		Murat Aguzarov ( 771) 0.0
		Jacob Zaletaev ( 306) 0.0
3	CEKKIN	CEK Kings (817.5)	0.0
		Alexander R Chung (1282) 0.0
		Zachary Mokhtar ( 785) 0.0
		Julian Eisenstein ( 613) 0.0
		Ethan Liang ( 590) 0.0
4	FENNA	The Fenn School A Team (773.8)	0.0
		Jayden Zhou (1359) 0.0
		Bjorn Cosman ( 798) 0.0
		Theo Arno Desatnik ( 605) 0.0
		Bennett Smigler ( 333) 0.0
5	UNEXP	Unexpected (733.8)	0.0
		Esther Arolovitch ( 887) 0.0
		Leonard Guo ( 860) 0.0
		Yazhini Sriram ( 622) 0.0
		Roman Kalashnikov ( 566) 0.0
6	FESSEN	Fessenden (703.0)	0.0
		George Sun ( 895) 0.0
		Brady Anzivino ( 887) 0.0
		Sebastien Porte ( 617) 0.0
		Cameron Anzivino ( 413) 0.0
		Elliott Gao (unr.) 0.0
7	BANANA	BananaMan (692.3)	0.0
		Nicholas Djanikian ( 824) 0.0
		Alexander Ciccarone ( 766) 0.0
		Leo Regnier ( 619) 0.0
		Mark Gutner ( 560) 0.0
8	SAI	Team Sai (578.0)	0.0
		Danvir Thirukkonda ( 690) 0.0
		Adhvik Senthil Kuma ( 549) 0.0
		Harshith V Mekala ( 547) 0.0
		Samanth Srivats ( 526) 0.0
9	FUNOWC	Funky Owls C (570.8)	0.0
		Vedant Shah ( 996) 0.0
		Aaron Yang Wang ( 680) 0.0
		Brennan Carroll ( 352) 0.0
		Roman Pozhidaev ( 255) 0.0
10	CEKROO	CEK Rooks (526.5)	0.0
		Joowan Shin ( 781) 0.0
		Noah Narang ( 502) 0.0
		Kathy Lexin Ma ( 446) 0.0
		Holden Xu ( 377) 0.0

Team Roster and Standings. Winter Team Challenge: Under 500 Section

	Code	Name	Score
1	SWAN	SWAN (472.8)	0.0
		Hovhannes Sargent ( 668) 0.0
		Morrice Nathenson Steier ( 573) 0.0
		Michael Agajanyan ( 545) 0.0
		William Wang (* 105) 0.0
		Fredrik Nathenson Steier ( 104) 0.0
2	CHERO1	Chess Heroes 1 (470.0)	0.0
		Sayujya Alluri ( 626) 0.0
		Sanjeev Sivaraman ( 542) 0.0
		Vihaan Kota ( 406) 0.0
		Shea Benjamin Sullivan ( 306) 0.0
3	NEEDMS	Needham Middle School (469.3)	0.0
		Jeffrey Herschberg Stiles ( 736) 0.0
		Adrian Deych ( 730) 0.0
		Tima Kalashnikov ( 311) 0.0
		Louis Chang (* 100) 0.0
4	BROADM	Broadmeadow (469.0)	0.0
		Xander Sherman ( 876) 0.0
		Ella Ly ( 494) 0.0
		Leopold Seegert ( 282) 0.0
		Daniel Piatkov ( 224) 0.0
		Davyd Yahasyk (* 100) 0.0
5	CEKKNI	CEK Knights (463.8)	0.0
		Ani Nalband Brown ( 489) 0.0
		Abid Zakaria ( 489) 0.0
		Malcolm Foster ( 449) 0.0
		Julian Carbone ( 428) 0.0
		Luka Bylinskii ( 103) 0.0
6	MITCH	Mitchell (456.0)	0.0
		Owen Zhu ( 658) 0.0
		Wesley Eng ( 612) 0.0
		Ellery Levy ( 454) 0.0
		Mason Malek (* 100) 0.0
7	STAR2	Star Academy 2 (436.3)	0.0
		George Koren ( 623) 0.0
		David Koren ( 363) 0.0
		Leon Ar Kalenjian ( 323) 0.0
		Michael Baron (unr.) 0.0
8	CHERO2	Chess Heroes 2 (374.3)	0.0
		William M Li ( 432) 0.0
		Mason Carter Ripley ( 385) 0.0
		Aadvik Bijoy ( 365) 0.0
		Harman Singh (* 315) 0.0
9	FUNOWD	Funky Owls D (342.8)	0.0
		Donald Gracie ( 474) 0.0
		Ayen Hemaratne ( 437) 0.0
		Greyson Park ( 288) 0.0
		Declan Carroll ( 172) 0.0
10	FENNB	The Fenn School B Team (314.0)	0.0
		Aaryash Kumar ( 626) 0.0
		Jonah Seliger-Schamberg ( 429) 0.0
		Oliver Caccavaro ( 101) 0.0
		Milo Rice (* 100) 0.0
11	SAI	Team Sai (277.5)	0.0
		Aarav Karthikeyan ( 397) 0.0
		Akshaj Boothpur ( 351) 0.0
		Aarnik Mitra ( 250) 0.0
		Viraaj Kumar ( 112) 0.0
12	BEGWI2	Beginners to Winners - 2 (277.5)	0.0
		Kyrill Bogdanov ( 354) 0.0
		Anna Bulychev ( 313) 0.0
		Benj Hemberg Mierau ( 253) 0.0
		George Lam ( 190) 0.0
		Miriam Hemberg Mier ( 117) 0.0
13	RSMBEL	RSM Belmont (244.8)	0.0
		Nirvaan Bonthapally ( 394) 0.0
		Varsha Sehgal ( 311) 0.0
		Wolfie Driver ( 174) 0.0
		Sultan Sakhapov (* 100) 0.0
14	BEGWI1	Beginners to Winners - 1 (218.5)	0.0
		Lawrence Glina ( 375) 0.0
		Eli Alexander Lantsman ( 252) 0.0
		Marc Yambayev ( 126) 0.0
		William Wu ( 121) 0.0
		Eric Yambayev ( 114) 0.0
15	RSMBE2	RSM Belmont 2 (217.5)	0.0
		William Audrain (* 299) 0.0
		Henry George Bourque ( 298) 0.0
		Elias Huang ( 173) 0.0
		Paolo Passamonti (* 100) 0.0
16	CEKPAW	CEK Pawns (112.0)	0.0
		Everett Kittredge ( 137) 0.0
		Zoey Mokhtar ( 111) 0.0
		Teddy Stanley (* 100) 0.0
		Luke Liu (* 100) 0.0
		Amelia Sheberla (* 100) 0.0
17	FUNOWE	Funky Owls E (0.0)	0.0
		Mason Crow (unr.) 0.0
		Michael Liu (unr.) 0.0
		Dryden Stefanelli (unr.) 0.0
		Natanel Ben-David (unr.) 0.0

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

01/4/2026: Winners at 2025 New England Blitz Championship

The 2025 New England Blitz Championship was held on December 28, 2025. This official New England Chess Association (NECA) event was co-sponsored by the Ocean State Chess Association (OSCA) and Future Masters Chess Academy in Ashland, MA, which also hosted the event.

66 players attended, including 15 titled players! The time limit was G/3 +5, in a 7-round double-SS format (white and black; 14 games in all). See complete crosstables here.

NM Lawyer Times (right), owner, Future Masters Chess Academy, stands next to 2025 New England Blitz Champion GM Alexander Ivanov and the rest of the winners circle. (Photo: Frank Delbonis)

Open Championship Section:

1st - Champion - GM Alexander Ivanov (MA) - 11.5 pts

2nd - NM Rajesh Shanmugasundaram (RI) 9.5 pts

3rd - NM Dattasai Kilari (MA) - 9.5 pts

U2000 Champion - CM Franklin Lewis (MA) - 8.5 pts

U1700 Section

1st - Kenisro Princeton Viyani (MA) - 12.5 pts

2nd - Arush Ghosh (CT) - 10.5 pts

3rd - Karanbir Singh (MA) - 9.0 pts

Tie 3rd / U1400 Champion - Ziming Fan (MA) - 9.0 pts

U1200 Section

1st - Luke LaRochelle (RI) - 11.0 pts

2nd - Brandon Thrope (NY) - 10.0 pts

3rd - Evan Gavlick (RI) - 9.0 pts

U800 Section

1st - Samuel McLaren (MA) - 12.0 pts

2nd - Adrian Deych (MA) - 9.0 pts

3rd - Jack Francis (MA) - 9.0.pts

News provided by Frank Delbonis, President, OCSA

Added to Mass Chess news by Mike Urbonas on Jan. 4, 2026.

Bob Messenger
Chief TD