By Tony Chen, Scholastic Coordinator
The weather wasn’t the only thing that’s been heating up in the month of July, as there was another scorchingly successful monthly scholastic chess tournament courtesy of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (CCSCSL). On Saturday, July 29th, the Squares & Stripes Scholastic Chess Tournament held on SLU campus at Cook Hall brought a strong finish to the last tournament before the school year.
In an effort to have players with similar ratings play against each other, new sections were used for Squares & Stripes: K-12 Open section and K-12 U800 section. In the U800 section, four players finished with perfect 4-0 scores. But due to tie-breaks, 1st place went to Max Xu, while 2nd and 3rd place went to Joseph Kasprzyk and Alex Zhang respectively. Other trophy winners in the U800 section include Saanvi Ramgounda for Top Female Player and Royce Jeffries for Top Unrated Player.
The last round of the K-12 Open section featured the highly anticipated and fated matchup of the two top rated players: Asish Panda (1631) and Rowan Riney (1497). Squares & Stripes marked the third and final tournament of the summer between the two, with both players walking into the game with one win against the other. After a long and grueling duel, Asish Panda managed to pull ahead of Riney once again to earn the title of first place, and push Rowan Riney to fourth in the standings. After the dust settled, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place went to Asish Panda, Luka Bassnett, and Benjamin Xu, while Jenna Song and Amir Mammodov took Top Female Player and Top Unrated Player trophies respectively.
As always, the team competition portion of the tournament was the object of much attention. In the U800 section, Alex Zhang (perfect score) led Spoede Elementary to 1st place with a combined 12.5 points. 2nd place went to Babler Elementary with 11.5 points, led by Nathan Johnson (perfect score) while 3rd place team went to Argo, with a combined score of 10.5. In the Open section, Parkway Northeast Middle dominated the team component with a commanding 12 points, led by the tournament champion Asish Panda. While Parkway Southwest Middle took 2nd place, and Glenridge Elementary took 3rd place.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the families and organizations that help us make these monthly tournaments possible. Please join us for the next phase of our monthly scholastic tournament series, “Dog Day Duels” on Sunday, August 27th, at II Monastero Banquet Center of SLU campus.
