National Champions Crowned in National Harbor

29 players earned the honor of being named National (Co-)Champion in National Harbor, Maryland on Sunday, December 8. Across 13 sections (determined by grade level, from kindergarten through 12th grade), over 2,700 players contributed to the record-breaking event.

Read on for game highlights from our various champions. Photographs for individual and team winners from Sunday's awards ceremony are available on our Flash Report. All results can be found here. Co-Champions are discussed in tiebreak order unless otherwise noted.

12th Grade

Illinois's FM Avi Kaplan and Virginia's Arnav Gupta closed out their final K-12 Grade Championship as Co-Champions, each finishing with 6/7 scores. Kaplan and Gupta drew their head-to-head encounter Sunday morning before each winning their final game.

Both Gupta and Kaplan's last-round opponent Aarush Vinod play for Virginia's Thomas Jefferson High School (TJHS), so it should come as no surprise that, with half of the top-four finishers on their three-person team, TJHS won the team championship. The 16½/21 score was two-and-a-half points ahead of the competition.

11th Grade

Four high school juniors tied for first place with 6/7 scores in what turned out to be one of the most hotly contested sections. IM Evan Park (PA) joins the New York trio of IM Liran Zhou, William Safranek, and Jed Sloan as Co-Champions.

From left: Liran Zhou against Evan Park, William Safranek, Jed Sloan

Park entered the final day ahead of the field with a 5/5 score, but consecutive draws (including against Zhou in the final game) gave other players a chance to catch up. Zhou's sixth-round win and Safranek and Sloan's seventh-round wins are below:

Three teams tied for first with 15/21 scores: American Heritage School (FL), Sloan's Stuyvesant (NY), and Livingston (NJ).

10th Grade

IM Erick Zhao (PA) entered the final round as the only unblemished player with a 6/6 score and needed only a quick draw to secure at least a share of the championship.

Erick Zhou, shortly before offering a draw

This was an acceptable result for Zhou's opponent, WIM Chloe Gaw (NY), who finished second on tiebreaks ahead of Abhiram Sai Pothuri (FL) with a 6/7 score. Zhou's sixth-round win is below:

While Pothuri would have had chances to catch Zhou with a last-round victory, his draw was enough to boost The Frazer School to a 14½/21 score and a team championship a half-point ahead of Academies of Loudon (VA) and Stuyvesant.

9th Grade

CM Nikash Vemparala continued an impressive run to win the ninth-grade section with a perfect 7/7 score.

The Washingtonian was National Middle School Co-Champion this past May, and his seventh-round victory over FM Isaac Wang was his second win of the event against an opponent rated over 2400 US Chess.

Ardrey Kell High School (NC) won the team championship with a 14½/21 score a full point ahead of the competition.

8th Grade

Four players finished atop the eighth-grade standings with a 6/7 score: CM Yiding Lu (WA), Andrew Jiang (GA), Kyle Zhuang (VA), and Oscar Izzy Williams (FL).

Liding Yu (L) and Oscar Izzy Williams were two of the four players to finish with 6/7 in the eighth-grade section.

CM Nitesh Cherukuri (MD) entered the last round with a 5½/6 score, putting him a half-point ahead of a large group of players on his heels. But Andrew Jiang "won on demand" with the black pieces, leapfrogging Cherukuri (who finished fifth on tiebreaks) and opening the gates for others to do the same:

Millburn Middle School (NJ) won the team title with 15/21 points, a half-point ahead of Speyer Legacy School (NY) and Success Academy Midtown West (NY). The team standings of this section were a testament to the depth of many of these sections, as none of the four individuals with 6/7 scores were on any of the teams in the hunt for the team title!

7th Grade

FM Bryan Enming Lin (NY) swept the seventh-grade section with a 7/7 score, capping off an impressive weekend that began with a share of the K-12 National Blitz Championship. His fearless and accurate play with the king is worth a look:

Lin's seven points went a long way toward Hunter College Campus School's team trophy, but, with both teammates finishing in the top 15, it truly was a team effort. Arabella Fang tied for second with her 6/7 score, finishing four on tiebreaks. A half-point behind her, Bryson Wolf tied for seventh, finishing 14th on tiebreaks. Their combined 18½/21 score put them four-and-a-half points ahead of the closest competition!

6th Grade

CM Kyle Dong (NJ) and Elliott Goodrich are the sixth-grade Co-Champions, finishing with 6/7 scores ahead of 17 players tied for third with 5½/7 scores.

Dong's materially imbalanced win from Sunday morning is below, as is Goodrich's emphatic tactical seventh-round victory:

Not only was Goodrich's 20. Qg4! good enough for a share of the individual title, but it was also what put Dalton (NY) a half-point ahead of Speyer in the team standings, winning with a 16/21 score.

5th Grade

The statistically inclined reader may have noticed that, the higher a player's winning score is, the more likely it is that that player wins outright. It's very difficult for anybody to go 7/7, let alone for two people to get that far without playing each other. But as that score drops to 6½/7 or 6/7, it becomes not just possible but probable that there will be a tie at the top.

The top four fifth graders (in tiebreak order, from left): Ariv Debmisra Lev Shangin, Lucas Yang, Shiv Dubey

But what are the odds of an eight-way tie for first? I'm not sure, but that's what happened in the fifth-grade section. In tiebreak order, the elite eight are: Ariv Debmisra (PA), Lev Shangin (NY), Lucas Yang (Speyer), Shiv Dubey (NY), Julian Ma (NY), Jacob Wang (CA), Samuel Le (PA), and Logan Freiman (NY).

Interestingly enough, the 327 fifth graders competing is a little under double the size of the eighth-grade field (and about triple the size of the tenth-grade field), where four players tied for first with 6/7 scores in each section. While the lower grades such as sixth- and fourth- had similar numbers of players to this section, there was at least one player to reach 6½/7 or higher. So, maybe an eight-way logjam is exactly what we should expect out of 6/7 being the winning score!

Below are games from two of the winners. First is Debmisra's sixth-round tactical victory over then-leading Lucas Yang:

Next is Shangin's victory from the last round. Many newer players have tried 4. ... Bf5?! in the Slav before, so it's worth reviewing the ideas here.

If all three of your top scorers finish in the top 10, that should mean you win the team trophy by a landslide right? Well, not necessarily! Speyer's team featured both Shangin and Yang, and they were joined by Raza Mikal Patel (5½/7, tied-ninth, 10th on tiebreaks) to post a 17½/21 score. This was good enough for first, but Dubey's PS 77 Lower Lab was only a half-point back! Dubey was joined by two more players tied for ninth: Takki Tanaka (ninth on tiebreaks) and Aileen Lou (16th on tiebreaks). Talk about a pair of super-teams!

4th Grade

Advik Manchanda (TX) won the fourth-grade section with a 6½/7 score.

Four players entered the final round with 5½/6 scores, but a draw on board two made the following endgame a "winner takes all" scenario:

PS 77 Lower Lab was the top team, finishing with a 16½/21 score a half-point ahead of Oak Hall (FL).

3rd Grade

Aiden Li "won on demand" in the last-round of the third-grade section to finish in clear first with a 6½/7 score.

Li had the white pieces against Lukas LeBakken (VA), who entered the game unblemished with a 6/6 score. Even after the loss, LeBakken finished a well-deserved second place on tiebreaks.

Speyer's 17/21 score was good for a two-point winning margin over the nearest competitor. Speyer's top two scorers — WCM Abigail Zhou and Ian Avery Singh — finished tied for second with 6/7 scores, finishing fourth and 10th, respectively on tiebreaks.

2nd Grade

Winston Ruiying Chen (NY) won the second-grade section with a 7/7 score, fending off fellow New Yorker Darren Wu in the last round to clinch the title.

Wu's Elizabeth M. Barker Elementary School won the team trophy with a 14½/21 score, a full point ahead of PS 77 Lower Lab.

1st Grade

Yicheng Zhang (NY) and Matthew Wang (CA) drew their sixth-round head-to-head match-up and then each won their last-round games to finish as Co-Champions with 6½/7 scores.

Yicheng Zhang (left, front) and Matthew Wang (back, right) won their last-round games to become first-grade Co-Champions

With a 15/21 score, Oak Hall finished in first place ahead of Dalton in a close race that saw the two teams tied entering the final day.

Kindergarten

Francis Zhou (NY) won the kindergarten section with an unblemished 7/7 score. Imagine how good he'll be when he can reach his opponent's back rank:

Oak Hall produced another champion in this section, with a 13½/21 score that was two-and-a-half points ahead of Speyer (who finished a half-point ahead of third-place Dalton).

Last But Not Least

They might not have won any medals, but everybody in the photo below deserves a round of digital applause: