2007 All America Team

The 2007 All America Team was announced during the recent National K-12/Collegiate tournament in Florida. Selected members include:

• Age 18
  
  1. Hikaru Nakamura
  
  
• Age 17
  
  1. Igor Schneider
  
  
• Age 16
  
  1. Sal Bercys
     
  2. Joel Banawa
  
  
• Age 15
  
  1. Daniel Ludwig
  
  
• Age 14
  
  1. Robert Hess
  
  
• Age 13
  
  1. Marc Tyler Arnold
  
  
• Age 12
  
  1. Alex Heimann
     
  2. Victor Shen
     
  3. Mark Heimann
     
  4. Michael Lee
     
  5. Christian Tanaka
     
  
  
• Age 11
  
  1. Ray Robson
     
  2. Parker Zhao
     
  3. Michael Yang
     
  4. Zachary Young
     
  5. Boris Xu
     
  
  
• Age 10
  
  1. Daniel Naroditsky
     
  2. Gregory Young
     
  3. Christopher Heung
     
  4. Ryan Joseph Moon
     
  5. Stuart Finney
     
  6. Jason Altschuler
     
  7. Andrew Wang
     
  8. Sam Silberman
     
  
  
• Age 9
  
  1. Darwin Yang
     
  2. Atulya Arya Shetty
     
  3. Aleksandr Ostrovskiy
     
  4. Fernando Mendez, Jr.
     
  5. Sylvia Yang
     
  6. Eric Zhang
     
  7. Lucas Van Beuzekom
     
  
  
• Age 8
  
  1. Nicholas Nip
     
  2. Christopher Wu
     
  3. Brian Luo
     
  4. Brennen Lee
     
  5. Fernando Spada
     
  6. Alexander Velikanov
     
  7. Eric Liao
     
  8. Kevin Wang
     
  9. Danil Fedunov
     
  10. Danny Balter
      
  11. Andrew Jiang
      
  
  

Congratulations to each and every one of you!

Great National K-12/Collegiate Coverage

For a wonderful photo essay regarding the recent National K-12/Collegiate tournament, see Elizabeth Vicary's excellent online article here. She describes some strange forfeits at the top boards and includes a game by a player whom IM Greg Shahade is quoted as calling "a huge, huge talent, easily one of the most promising juniors in the country."

National K-12 Photos - part three

Again, our thanks go out to MonRoi for the following pictures from the 2006 National K-12/Collegiate tournament:

National K-12 Final Results!

Congratulations to all of the winners at the 2006 National K-12/Collegiate championship! Here they are:

• Collegiate section: Daniel Fernandez
  
• 12th Grade: Eric Rodriguez
  
• 11th Grade: Daniel Ludwig
  
• 10th Grade: Matt Parry
  
• 9th Grade: Shinsaku Uesugi
  
• 8th Grade: Mark Heimann
  
• 7th Grade: Andrew Ng
  
• 6th Grade: Christopher Heung
  
• 5th Grade: Sylvia Yang
  
• 4th Grade: Kevin Cao
  
• 3th Grade: Benjamin Moon
  
• 2nd Grade: Tom Polgar-Shutzman
  
• 1st Grade: Jonathan Chiang
  
• Kindergarten: Raymond Sun
  
  
• Blitz K-6: Lucas Van Beuzekom
  
• Blitz K-12: Corey Acor
  

The prize for the biggest upset went to 9th grader Nikolas Baeza, rated 572, who in the second round defeated his opponent who was rated 1742, a whopping 1166-point difference!

For complete results, click here.

National K-12 Photos - part two

Here are more photos from the 2006 National K-12/Collegiate, courtesy of MonRoi:

National K-12 Results

Photo: MonRoi

Results of the 2006 National K-12 are posted here, although as of this writing, some information still has to be updated.

Congratulations to all of the players who participated in the tournament's many events! We'll have more to report shortly.

National K-12 Photos

Photos courtesy of our friends at MonRoi:

National K-12 Round Four Game

Here's the 4th round game between Daniel Fernandez and Nelson Lopez in the Collegiate section of the 2006 National K-12/Collegiate tournament. Watch how Fernandez wins a pawn, then keeps building up his lead.

National K-12 After Five Rounds

Photo credit: MonRoi









1545 competitors, from Kindergarten through College, are in Florida for the annual "All Grades" championship. After the first five rounds, there are 29 players with perfect 5-0 scores, at least one player in each section with the sole exception of the Collegiate division. Among the "perfect" players is Tommy Polgar-Shutzman in the 2nd Grade section. If his name looks a bit familiar, that's because he's GM Susan Polgar's son!

Here is the breakdown of the number of participants in each section:

• Kindergarten: 31
  
• 1st Grade: 88
  
• 2nd Grade: 133
  
• 3rd Grade: 187
  
• 4th Grade: 201
  
• 5th Grade: 186
  
• 6th Grade: 156
  
• 7th Grade: 136
  
• 8th Grade: 140
  
• 9th Grade: 74
  
• 10th Grade: 58
  
• 11th Grade: 66
  
• 12th Grade: 67
  
• Collegiate: 22
  

In the team standings thus far, perennial powerhouse Catalina Foothills High School of Tucson, Arizona leads in the 12th and 11th Grade sections, while the stong Evanston Township High School from the Chicago area heads up the 10th Grade division. Always-strong Hunter College Campus School in New York is currently leading the Kindergarten, 2nd Grade, 7th Grade and 8th Grade sections and is near the top in the 3rd Grade, 4th Grade and 5th Grade divisions.

For tournament results, see this USCF page.

There is also a nice report by Elizabeth Vicary at Chess Life Online here.

National K-12 / Collegiate Starts Today!

It's always one of the largest chess tournaments of the year and it begins today. Watch for updates as we bring you the results of the 2006 National K-12/Collegiate championship!

To read my report from last year's National K-12, click here.

National K-12 less than Two Weeks Away!

Nearly 1000 players have already pre-registered for the 2006 National K-12 ("All Grades") Championship, December 8-10 at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

This is the place to be for scholastic chess if you can make it!

For more information, see the USCF tournament website.

2006 National K-12/Collegiate Championships

Happy players at last year's National K-12/Collegiate tournament

It's only three weeks away!

The annual K-12/Collegiate tournament (also known as the "All-Grades" championship) is set to take place from Dec. 8-10, 2006 at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Seven rounds of game/90 will be played in each of the 14 sections. Players are assigned to a section based on their current grade in school, kindergarten through 12th grade, with one section for all collegiate players.

Last year nearly 1600 kids from 40 states participated. Will you be there this year?