By Tony Chen, Scholastic Coordinator
The Halloween Havoc Chess Tournament held on October 29 at SLU marked the one year anniversary for the Saint Louis Chess Club’s monthly scholastic tournament series. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Progress is impossible without change.” In that spirit, a Chess Grand Prix element was added to the monthly scholastic tournaments to encourage more participation and to make the school year more exciting. The Chess Grand Prix will consists of seven tournaments spanning from October to April, and players will accrue points from each of the seven tournaments they play. At Halloween Havoc, which was the first Grand Prix event, 175 young chess players gathered together to compete for prizes and a good start to the Grand Prix season.
In the K-6 U800 section, 85 players competed to be the best of the under section. After four rounds of play, five players ended up with perfect 4-0 scores. But like every scholastic tournament, USCF tiebreaks determined how each player placed, and Tarun Haribasker edged out the rest for 1st place. Bowen Zhao, Bobby Lewis, Amogh Raikhanghar, and Harper Buxner were give 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place respectively by tiebreaks. Other award winners included Saanvi Ramgounda for Top Female Player and James Wacker for Top Unrated Player.
The K-12 Open section had a record breaking 90 players that competed for a shot at being the best. With so many players in the section, four players tied with perfect 4-0 scores. Using the same tiebreaks as the other section, the newcomer Christopher Corriveau took 1st place. 2nd place went to Cole Tatro, who also had the biggest upset in the last round by beating the heavily favored Aidan Johnson. 3rd and 4th place were give to Aahan Sharma and Rex Zhu respectively. Other award winners in the section were Isabel Yearian for Top Female Player and Eben Morgan for Top Unrated Player.
As always, the team competition drew a lot of attention. In the U800 section, Argo took 1st place with 12.5 points. GF Chess Club also earned 12.5 points, but due to tiebreaks, took 2nd place. Babler elementary, which is slowly becoming a veteran team, took 3rd place with 11 points. In the Open section, GF Chess Club took 1st place with a commanding 13.5 points, led by 2nd place overall Cole Tatro. Spoede Elementary took 2nd place with 11.5 points, led by Rex Zhu. 3rd place went to first time participant Grand Center Arts Academy, led by section champion Christopher Corriveau.
Congratulations and thanks to all the players, families, and partners who make our tournaments possible. Please join us for the second tournament of the Grand Prix: “Turkey Tango” on November 19th, at the Center for Global Citizenship on SLU Campus. Also, be sure to check out our website regularly to find any new changes to our monthly tournament series here.
Full list of tournament results here and the Chess Grand Prix Results here >
