Chess News Provided by The Massachusetts Chess Association

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