9th Annual New York State Girls Championship Breaks Attendance Records

The 9th Annual New York State Girls Championship was held November 15-16, hosted by Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and presented by Chess Center of New York and Little House of Chess.

Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School hosted 620 girls for the record-breaking event. (Photos courtesy of the organizers)

A total of 620 girls competed across nine sections, setting not only a new record for the event, but also a record for a US Chess girls’ tournament. This year, 73 teams competed in the event.

Chloe Gaw won the K-12 (Open) Championship with a 5½/6 score.

WIM Chloe Gaw won the K-12 (Open) NYS Girls Championship, with a 5½/6 score. A junior at The Chapin School in Manhattan, Chloe won the right to represent New York in next summer’s WIM Ruth Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions in Grand Rapids, MI. She earned $500 for her first-place finish, which featured five consecutive wins before a draw in her final game.

The top boards in a smaller playing hall.

Allyson Yu won $300 for her second-place finish with a 5/6 score. Yu was the only competitor in the K-12 Championship for her school: Elizabeth Mellick Baker Elementary School in Great Neck. Yes, the 1900-rated Yu is only in fourth grade! Allyson and Chloe had a fierce battle with extended attacks and counterattacks in Round 3 (see below).

Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School won the top team prize in the K-12 Championship, led by WCM Hema Vikas and Aliana Fausto, who finished third and fourth, respectively, on tiebreaks with 4½/6 scores, taking home $100 apiece. Hema also had a good position against Chloe in Round 4, but that was all wiped out by a sudden kingside attack:

In the K-6 Championship section, WCM Abigail Zhou, a fourth-grader, won with a 5½/6 score. Her team, Speyer Legacy School, also led by Aileen Lou (4½/6) and Leah Maya (3½/6), finished in second place with 13½/18, a half-point behind Success Academy Charter School Midtown West.

SA Midtown West was led by Wan Qin (“Annie”) Li, who scored 5/6 individually, and Kara Chan and Alexandra Liu, who each scored 4.5. Individually, Annie tied for second place in the event with Elizabeth Zhou. In the critical last round, (see below) Annie held the draw against Abigail, resulting in Abigail’s individual championship, but Midtown West securing the team championship!

In the K-3 Championship, third-grader Avrora Okonova finished clear first, also with a 5½/6 score, and Charlotte Chang took clear second with 5/6. Success Academy Charter School Union Square won the team championship with a 10/18 score.

In the K-1 Championship, Aurora Golovicher and Allison Chang tied for first with 5/6 scores, finishing first and second, respectively, on tiebreaks. PS 77 Lower Lab won the team trophy on tiebreaks with a 12/18 score, ahead of Greenacres Elementary School (Scarsdale, NY).

A selection of Success Academy teams that won at least a share of six of the nine sections.

A stunning statistic from the event was that six different Success Academy schools finished first or tied for first, in six of the nine sections! Midtown West won the K-6 Championship, Union Square won the K-1 Championship, SA’s High School of the Liberal Arts won the K-12 U1400, SA’s Bronx 3 Elementary School won the K-12 U1200, SA Harlem West won the K-8 U1000 and SA Union Square and SA Upper West tied for first in the K-3 U600!

The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn was the top overall cross-section team, with ten players competing and a 14/15 score from its top three players: Jamie Downer (5/5 in the K-6 Under-800), Aliza Batsiyan (5/5 in the K-3 Under-600), and Evangelina Brucelas-Lopes (4/5 in the K-3 Under-600). To be counted on the team standings page, a school had to have at least two players (not necessarily from the same section) competing, with results counted from the players’ first five rounds, as the one-day sections played only five rounds total.

One special type of prize that can be won by top scorers in this event is free or reduced entry fees to future Continental Chess Association tournaments. This valuable prize is very motivating to players looking to move up to the next level in chess!

Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School was a wonderful host for this event, using its gyms and cafeterias as playing halls, its lobbies as reception and tournament direction areas, and its classrooms as team rooms. CGPS has a very long-running stature as a host for NYC chess events, and as one of the top competitive teams in the country. CGPS believes that chess enhances life skills for its students, and it embraces chess study and chess events wholeheartedly.

Games from the top boards of the K-12 Championship can be replayed on lichess.org, and results from all sections can be found on kingregistration.com.