Winter Knights compete, NATS opens

In the 9-12 section, place-winners in Winter Knights Scholastic Chess Tournament were Boone Ramsey, from left, Jenson Wilhelm and Om Badhe. CONTRIBUTED

MADISON – At the Winter Knights Scholastic Chess Tournament, six Madison players qualified for the upcoming City Chess Championship.

Winter Knights was the third qualifying tournament for the premiere of the city tourney on March 25-26. Winter Knights “was designed to help condition students to playing the longer games of the City Chess Championship and national tournaments in the spring,” Ranae Bartlett said.

Bartlett is executive director of Madison City Chess League.

In K-3, second-graders Karsten Wallace and Alex Povorozniuc will advance to the city contest. Award winners in places 1-6 were Karsten Wallace, Alex Povorozniuc, Caroline Wang, Oviya Gowder, Luke Chynoweth and Catrina Holschen.

In 4-6, Columbia Elementary students Puja Chopade and Abhishek Emani qualified for city. Overall winner third-grader Geon Park was “‘playing up’ in grades 4-6 after qualifying for the city championship last year,” Bartlett said. Other award winners were Aubteen Pour-Biazar, Pranaav Satheesh, Victor Lundy and Neha Chopade.

For 7-8, fifth-grader Constance Wang ‘played up’ to take fourth place and Top Female medal. Will Bao and Hayden Billmann qualified for city. Winners were Michael Guthrie, Josh Lin and Chris Baker.

In 9-12, players previously had qualified for city championship: Om Badhe, Jenson Wilhelm and Boone Ramsey.

Another upcoming event, North Alabama Team Scholastic (NATS) Chess Tournament will be held Feb. 13 at Rainbow Elementary School.  A mandatory meeting for players will begin at 9 a.m. First round will start at 9:15 a.m.

Four-person teams will play four rounds with a 40-minute game time and five-second delay. “All members of a team must attend the same school,” Bartlett said.

Early registration forms and more information are available at madisonchess.com. Chess coaches can either register and pay online by Feb. 10 or mail forms and checks by Feb. 5. Team registration fee is $40.

To compete, players must have memberships with United States Chess Federation (USCF) and Alabama Chess Federation (ACF).

Gourmet Grits food truck will serve breakfast and lunch. Rollin Lobstah and Rainbow PTA also will sell concessions.

State representatives Mac McCutcheon and Mike Ball are sponsoring NATS.