Super Saturday at the 2022 National Elementary Championship

Three rounds are in the books in Columbus, Ohio, as the 2022 National Elementary (K-6) Championships are underway.

Only 31 players remain perfect in the four Championship sections heading into round four:

K-6: Eric Chang Liu, Nikash Vemparala, Anshul Shetty, Nate Ziegler, Sri Vibhav Bondalapati
K-5: Carter Ho, Aiden Lu, Aditeya Das, Yusuf Mansurov, Marcus Zheng, Arjun Gorakh Soni, Anmay Kumar Chaudhury
K-3: Elliott Goodrich, Ted Wang, Alice Chovanec, Lev Shangin, Linxi Zhu, Mason Jin Li, Lucas Yang, Lucas Chen, Aidan Baker
K-1: Rocky Wang, Aakash Jani, Samarth Ram Bharadwaj, Yi Sha, Umar Mansurov, Ethan Kim, Aiden Linyuan Li

Already we’ve seen some fighting chess and no few upsets. And we can expect much more excitement in the four rounds to come. Here’s a particularly interesting game from round three of the K-3, where Lucas Yang scored a 350+ point upset after finding a key endgame tactic to take the win.

You can keep track of all the action at uschess.live, where there are links to simulcasts at LiChess, Chess.com, and Chessbomb.

Beginning with tonight’s fifth round, you can also watch a livestream directly from Columbus featuring WGM Katerina Nemcova and FM Gauri Shankar. Nemcova and Shankar are both experienced analysts and streamers, and this Twitch stream is the next best thing to actually playing the event yourself!

Nemcova and Shankar will be streaming Round 5 (Saturday, 6pm EDT), Round 6 (Sunday, 10am EDT), and Round 7 (Sunday, 2pm EDT).

Blitz! Lectures! Fun!

If you’re not playing in the tournament — perhaps you’ve aged out of the Elementary Championships, your game has ended early, or perhaps you’re just a long-suffering chess parent (thank you for your service!) — there’s a lot going on to keep you occupied.

Our guest Grandmasters Josh Friedel and Elshan Moradiabadi have been kept busy. On Friday they took turns in a tandem simultaneous exhibition.

On-site sources tell Chess Life Online that the two GMs went a perfect 22/22, but it wasn’t a cakewalk!

Want to get some revenge for our friends in the simul? Starting Friday afternoon both players began a series of “All Comers” blitz sessions, where anyone — including you! — can come and challenge a Grandmaster.

There’s still time to challenge one or both players. Moradiabadi will meet all challengers Saturday afternoon from 2:30pm through 4:30pm, while Friedel tags in at 4:30 and will play until 6:30pm. Find them both in Exhibit Hall A.

They also pick up Sunday for more blitz action beginning at 12:30pm (Mordiabadi) and 2:30pm (Friedel).

Finally, if you missed Moradiabadi’s excellent lecture on Saturday, don’t fret: you can still hear from a GM when Friedel speaks Sunday in Fairfield at 1pm. Bring your best questions and get ready to learn!

The Girls Club

Of course the ever-popular Girls Club is up and running in Columbus. Hosts WGM Jennifer Shahade — our US Chess Women’s Program Director — and WGM Katerina Nemcova, along with Coach Krista and Arthur Alton, will be in the Club for analysis, puzzles, and so much more! Head over to the Union Ballroom A to get in on the fun!

For the Parents!

Parents, here are a few items you may want to keep track of:

Danny Rohde leads the Scholastic meeting at 2:15pm on Saturday. Hear from the Scholastic Committee in the Fairfield Room.

If you’re thinking about playing internationally, don’t forget about our “Preparing for International Youth Events Seminar” Sunday morning at 10:15am, also in the Fairfield room.

Finally, don’t forget to head to the bookstore in Delaware AB to pick up the latest in books, clocks, sets, and swag!

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