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State Chess Championship Draws a Record Turnout

September 8th, 11:59AM
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The 2023 Alabama State Chess Championship was held last weekend (September 1-3) at Trash Panda Stadium. Hosting the State Chess Championship in Madison was a first. The 116 players who showed up to compete made this a record turnout! The SportsMed Stadium Club made for a beautiful venue and the Trash Pandas staff was fantastic to work with. State Representative Phillip Rigsby, one or our sponsors, stopped by to welcome everyone to Madison and to present us with a certificate in recognition of the 70th Annual Alabama State Chess Championship.



The Amateur Section

The Madison City Chess League was well represented in the Championship. In the Amateur section, which was limited to players rated under 1200, Sophia Jerez of Journey Middle School finished 1st with 5.5 out of 6 points! Landon Drummond of Bob Jones High School finished 6th with 4.5 points. Nathan Chiu, also of Bob Jones, tied for 8th place with 4 points. 




Many other MCCL members played in the Amateur section, including Aaron Chen, Caroline Wang, Sean Rowe, and Rachael Ehrman of Bob Jones, Oviya Gowder of James Clemens High School, Cohen Tate, Noah Hsu, Arush Sharma, Christina Yang, Margaret Lin, John Chen, Abigail Barbre, and Shiloh Stringer of Discovery Middle School, Anna Ai and Andrew Tkach of Liberty Middle School, Jackson Moore of Journey Middle School, Kylie Zou, Alice Zou, and Samuel Ellis of Horizon Elementary, Asher Allison and Annabelle Hsu of Rainbow Elementary, Samuel Liao of Madison Elementary, Ibrahim Khan of Heritage Elementary, Gopika Baipu of Mill Creek Elementary, Andrew Hinckley, Patrick Piper, Jimmy McHugh, Robert Barbre, Sam Harrison, and Vincent Grenon.


The Reserve Section


In the Reserve section, which was for players rated below 1600, Jacob New of Bob Jones finished 3rd with 4.5 points. Esteban Jerez of Horizon Elementary, the youngest player in the section, finished in 4th place with 4 points. Aadi Saxena of Bob Jones tied for 4th place at 4 points. Andrew Yang, Nirvana Rajbhandari, Artem Starenki, and Eddie Xiao of Bob Jones also competed in this section.




 The Premier Section

In the Premier section, Xavier Bruni of Bob Jones High School finished 7th with 4 points. His one loss came against eventual co-champion Zachary Snow. Xavier finished a half-point behind the four players who tied for 1st place, which included two National Masters and one International Master. Xavier tied with National Master Scott Varagona, many-time winner of this championship, and finished ahead of other past champions. (In case I am being too subtle, I am making the point that this was a very tough section.) Joel Friedman, coach of Journey Middle School and Madison Elementary, and Bob Jones alum Victor Lundy tied for 10th place with 3.5 points. Steven Pan, also of Bob Jones, finished with 2.5 points.




Congratulations to Zachary Snow and Matthew Puckett who earned the title Alabama State Chess (Co-)Champion! 

You can still find the final standings on the MCCL website. The official US Chess tournament report can be found here.  

Thank you to our sponsors, our volunteers, and the Trash Pandas for making this a memorable event!
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