New York Metro Scholastic Chess Championships Deliver On Promise

The air in the Times Square Marriott Marquis was ionized with anxiety on January 3 and 4 for the New York Metro Scholastic Chess Championships. Children carrying chess bags were whooshed pneumatically to their respective playing halls in the hotel’s famous glass elevators as 1,438 players from kindergarten through 12^th grade moved with stone-faced focus, dutifully dragging coteries of parents, coaches, and all manner of extended family as they flooded nine floors of premium conference space in Midtown Manhattan.

A sign at the Marquis Hotel welcoming "K-12 Warriors"

A sign welcoming "K-12 Warriors" set the tone for the Metro Championships. (All photos courtesy of the organizers unless otherwise stated)

For their part, new organizer Official Chess sustained the buzz of potential from its first press release, to its Instagram page, right up to the very minute of the tournament’s kickoff. But now, it was time to put up.

Anyone who’s ever been to a major chess tournament, scholastic or otherwise, knows that the devil is in the details. The image of parents lying on hotel floors waiting as hour three of their kid’s game turns to hour four is one that most chess players know well. The reliability of text notifications. The supply of soap and toilet paper in the bathrooms. The availability of chess supplies. These (or the lack thereof), along with a thousand other pieces of minutiae, are often the areas where parents and players' complaints lie.

The playing hall at the New York Marriott Marquis.

From the onset it was clear that, at the very least, the art of spectacle had been reintroduced to the New York City scholastic chess scene. There were booths set up by shockingly robust sponsors like language-learning giant Duolingo, Broadway hit Chess: The Musical, and chess stars like New Jersey’s GM Abhimanyu Mishra. The parents' waiting area was spacious and full of seats. And Mark Kurtzman’s bookstore was replete not just with chess books, but with best-sellers appropriate for all skill and age levels.

FM Sunil Weeramantry (L) served as an advisor to the organizers and attended the tournament with his Hunter College teams, and GM Abhimanyu Mishra was a special guest in attendance.

I, myself, had a student playing in the tournament, and I remember remarking to his parents upon arrival that “this looks to be the best run major tournament I’ve ever seen, let’s see how they do once the rounds starts.”

Matias Rabsatt — Clibanoff's student — poses with his trophy for a share of 20th Place in the Elementary Under-700 section. (Photo by Matt Clibanoff)

A cynic by nature, I was floored by the organization of it all. The rounds were punctual, the TDs masterfully directed traffic, and the kids were having a blast playing skittles games on sleek Nymzo boards and hanging out with Duolingo’s giant (and somewhat terrifying) anthropomorphic owl mascot.

One of the event's sponsors, Duolingo, sent its spokespeople Oscar (L) and Owl (R), who here posed with Chief TD David Hater.

One might think that this standard would drop as the tournament went on, but no. The drum beat on with military efficiency, which in retrospect makes sense since chief TD NTD/IA David Hater is a retired colonel. From tip to tail, the show went off without a hitch.

As for formatting, the tournament consisted of five championship sections: K-1, Primary (K-3), Elementary (K-5), Junior High (K-8), and High School (K-12), along with their respective under sections, giving players of all levels a chance to compete for trophies.

All standings can be found here, and results are also available on MUIR.

In the High School section, FM Bryan Enming Lin took clear first with a 5½/6 score, and Lin’s Hunter College Campus School finished as the top team with a 19½/24 composite score from its top four players. Lin’s third-round win is included below:

Four players tied for first in the Junior High section with 5½/6 scores. In tiebreak order: WCM Alice Chovanec, Armaan Jain, Warren Liang, and Leqi Han. Chovanec’s top tiebreaks were due in part to her last-round win over the only player to enter the final round with a 5/5 score:

Hunter College Campus School again won the top team prize, this time with a blistering 21/24 score that included Co-Champions Liang and Han as well as two more players — WCM Arabella Fang and Kenji Goto — who tied for fifth with 5/6 scores. Chovanec’s Trinity School finished second with an 18/24 score.

In the Elementary section, four players again tied for first with 5½/6 scores. In tiebreak order: Kevin Xu, Aarav Singh, Isaac Noah Lui, and Melanie Liang. No Co-Champions were on the winning PS 130K The Parkside School team, which posted a 17½/24 score to finish a full point ahead of Hunter College Campus School.

Max Mulholland took clear first in the Primary section with an unblemished 6/6 record, essaying games full of teachable moments for his K-3 peers:

Three teams tied for first in the Primary with 15½/24 scores. In tiebreak order: PS130K The Parkside School, Saddle Rock Elementary School, and PS 130M Hernando De Soto.

Finally, in the K-1 section, Andrew Sirya’s 6/6 score put him an entire point of the five players tied for second. Speyer Legacy School won the team prize with a 16/24 score.

The undersections also boasted a faster time control for kids who weren’t quite ready to play grueling classical chess. The choice to use a faster time control for these sections was one of the details the organizers focused on when designing this tournament to be accessible and inclusive for as many children and families as possible.

“I’m not a chess guy. I’m a chess dad,” Tony Seto, founder of Official Chess, stated when I called him a few days following the tournament.

“My son started again in second grade. He loves it so much, he’s so passionate.” From there he extolled the value chess has brought to his son’s life. “Chess has improved his maturity and given him a lot of confidence,” he continued.

Organizer Tony Seto's son Brendan kickstarted Tony's journey from "chess dad" to chess organizer.

“Layer on top of that the social aspects of the community. It’s been a wonderful experience. People like David Hater and [FM] Sunil [Weeramantry] have built this high level of scholastic competition over the years. It’s so unique for kids his age. Not saying chess is the only good thing for a kid but having the apparatus of [US Chess] and these major scholastic events, there’s nothing else like it. I think it comes down to the rating system. I think it prepares kids for life. Like gosh, wins and losses still matter. Every move counts and every game counts. That’s a lot of pressure for sure so there’s a little bit of a balance there.”

At this, legendary chess educator and Tony’s chief advisor, FM Sunil Weeramantry stepped in.

“Winning and losing has to be put into perspective. It’s a mistake to compare yourself to anybody else. We teach chess at Hunter [College Campus Schools] but it’s not about turning out great chess players. It’s a process. We understand the value of the process and the kind of thinking that’s involved. Why can’t we bring that to kindergarten? Otherwise you have to wait until you engage in the sciences to get that kind of thing.”

As far as the tournament was concerned, the two were in lockstep. Weeramantry was clearly proud that his nearly 65 Hunter College Campus kids dominated the field (winning two team titles in championship sections, and finishing second in a third), but he seemed most excited at the tournament being back in New York for the first time since Covid. “Both of my kids grew up on this tournament,” he said. “Obviously you know Hikaru, but my older son also won national championships before moving on from chess. It’s an important tournament for the city. There were almost 1450 kids and school wasn’t even in session.”

Seto was more pensive. “My parents came over as immigrants in the 70s with nothing,” he said. “If I had played growing up, my mom probably would have slapped me in the face if I suggested going down to Orlando to play chess. My son is lucky. We hop on a plane and travel to play chess. But there are thousands of kids in New York who love chess who are probably in the same situation [I was]. The fact is it’s just not possible for these kids who love chess as much as my son. Most kids aren’t in the same situation.” As someone who does a lot of chess work in underserved communities, this sentiment struck a chord with me.

Organizers and TDs from the event.

I recall toward the end of the tournament I had a question about the location of the trophy ceremony and I asked someone I assumed was a TD. It turned out to be Seto. At the time he had no idea I’d be writing this article. I simply complimented him on a job well done and he modestly gave credit to others while giving me a lovely five-minute spiel, all while simultaneously directing traffic in five different directions. When I called him a few days later, it somehow felt as though I were talking to an old friend.

When Seto says lofty things like “I want to eliminate the debate between chess being a game and a sport. Great infrastructure will make it a sport,” you get the feeling that concrete plans are already in motion. When he says, as many have said before, that chess needs to go after serious corporate sponsors, you can’t help but imagine him in a boardroom with Rolex or Mercedes or whatever other prestige brand is currently representing Pro Tennis or F1. A breath of fresh air in chess, Seto is quick to pass credit onto his advisors and tournament directors, saving none for himself, but to quote his confidant Weeramantry: “It’s all for the kids, [but] Tony cut the checks. He’s the one who made it happen.”

To this Seto simply laughed, “Time is just as valuable as money. People believed, not in me, but that this would be good for the kids.” Based on last weekend’s turnout and reception, this sentiment is hard to argue with. Seto has confirmed that his organization’s goal is to run the tournament yearly. It would seem that the United States’ premier chess city once again has a scholastic championship worthy of its reputation.