Elementary Chess Champs Head to Nashville, TN, May 9-12

The Elementary National Chess Championships kick off in Nashville, TN at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center on May 9. The action opens with bughouse and blitz on Thursday, May 9, while the Main Event starts on May 10 and runs through May 12. The K-1 Championship features almost 200 pre-registered participants, while The K-3 Championship field includes NY State Champion Tanitoluwa "Tani" Adewumi as and top seeds Anjaneya Rao, Frank Fan and 2018 Girls Under 8 Pan-Am Champ Omya Vidyarthi.

Mou with Darth Vader at the KCF All Girls Nationals, Photo Betsy Zacate

Seven experts are pre-registered in the K-5 Championship, including Jayden Lee (Arizona), World Under 10 Cadet silver-medallist Erick Zhao (Florida) and Iris Mou, who just won the Under 12 section at the All-Girls Nationals in Chicago. The K-6 Championship is even more stacked, with three masters: Ming Lu, Jason Liang and Evan Park. Evan, 11, was recently featured in an article in his local paper in Pittsburgh, Trib Live, on his trip this summer to the World Cadet Championships in China. The article quoted Park's coach, four-time U.S. Champion Alexander Shabalov:

"Evan’s breaking the rating barrier to become a National Master is a great achievement at this age,” Shabalov said. “It is much more important for me to see that he got the foundation to become a Grandmaster one day.”

Guest Grandmasters at the event include GM Mackenzie Molner and WGM Jennifer Shahade, our Women's Program Director.

WGM Katerina Nemcova will also be in town with former Webster University team-mate IM Eric Rosen, to host the twitch.tv/chess livestream from rounds five to seven.

Nemcova and Shahade will be joined by WIM Carolina Blanco for a number of lectures and simuls in the Girls' Club Room, including a Spanish chess lesson by Blanco on Saturday, May 11 at 12 Noon.