The Team portion of the WV Scholastic Chess league is complete. Weberwood Kings took first over Kelsch Budwany on tiebreaks in the K-5 section. The Camden Crusaders dominated the MS/HS section (four of them scored a perfect 6-0!). The USCF crosstable can be found here.
Pictured is the MS/HS winning team, the Camden Crusaders.
Benjamin Good won the 23rd Mountaineer Open with a 4-0 score. Lewis Sanders and Christopher Easthom were 2nd with 3.5. More to come.
John Boylin, our resident championship collector, has added another to his list. John went 4-0 and is now the Junior Champion as well as the Action and overall State Champion. No one has ever held all of these at the same time before! If he could simultaneously be under 21 and over 50 I imagine he’d have all 4 titles.
Landon Leach and Ishaal Patel tied for the beginner section and Markle Butcher won the Friends and Family Section.
21 players competed in the 2023 WV Senior Championship, held in Bridgeport on November 4. Mark Eidemiller from PA won the tournament with a perfect 4/4. Lewis Sanders and David Hines tied for second with 3 points and are the 2023 WV Senior Co-Champions. Lewis will represent WV in the Irwin Tournament of Senior Champions.
Events Included: Action Championship, Chess Day, Concord Southern Open, Mountaineer Open 1/14, Mountaineer Open 4/2, YMCA Spring Open, Clarksburg Open, WV Italian Heritage Open, Thomas Bergquist Memorial
1. Lewis F Sanders 131.17 $360
2. John Boylin IV 114.75 $180
3. Markle W Butcher 60.17 $90
4. Benjamin M Good 50.50
5. John Everett Roush 48.65
6. Sam Timmons 47.07
7. Hardy Gu 45.06
8. David Wayne Hundley 34.83
9. James A Fuller II 26.83
10. Elijah David Schultz 24.73
11. Cortland Nesley 22.58
12. Josh A Rubino 19.16
13. Pushkal Solanki 18.75
14. Weston James Robarts 18.50
15. Christopher Leach 15.25
16. David Comer 15.09
17. Steven Aguilar 13.50
18. Charles B Adams 13.25
19. Ryan Ward 12.50
20. Edward A Garner 12.00
James William Sutherland 12.00
22. Allen D Farley 11.75
23. Dustin Andrew Booker 11.50
24. John Szasz III 11.00
25. Ryan T VanBibber 10.67
26. Craig Timmons 10.50
27. Caden Neal Eldridge 8.33
28. Gary Denver Cummings 7.50
29. Tristan A Johnston 7.33
30. Max Aiden Aguilar 7.00
Vishwadhipa Venkata Voore 7.00
32. Cameron H Collins 6.67
33. David F Hines 6.00
Michael Felton 6.00
35. Luke Garlick 5.75
36. Kenneth Alan Ross 3.50
Richard Keith Lilly 3.50
Richard T Holsberry 3.50
Robert Lawrence Rogers 3.50
40. Noah Hamilton 3.00
41. Brayden Charles Owens 2.25
42. Aditya Jain 1.00
Meghan Elkins 1.00
Benu Rellan has written an article about the Chess Camp with GM Swiercz for the September 2023 Chess Life. Well done!
22 players competed in the Thomas Bergquist Memorial WV State Championship, held September 9-10 in Huntington. John Boylin was guaranteed a share of the title after starting 4-0, and had mercy on the 2022 champion, Benjamin Good, with a final round draw.
John finished a point ahead of the field to win his first state title and $200. Ben Good, Sam Timmons, Lewis Sanders, and Suneil Avirneni of Oklahoma shared the 2nd, 3rd, and U1900 prize money. David Hundley won the U1600 prize. Matthew Phelps and Clay Thompson shared the U1300 prize.
The upset prize was won by Caden Eldridge (1007) for his victory over John Roush (2000).
Here are the the minutes from the annual business meeting:
2023 WVCA Business Meeting Minutes
Benjamin Good won the WV Italian Heritage open section with a perfect 4-0 score. John Roush, Anatoly Boshkin, Sam Timmons, Elijah Schultz, and Hardy Gu tied for second with 3-1 scores. Aaron Ross won the scholastic section with a 4-0 score.
Eighteen middle school and high school students from WV and KY attended the Huntington YMCA Chess Club’s Second Annual Chess Camp with GM Dariusz ŚwiercZ. The camp, June 26-29, included instruction on tactical as well as positional play, a simul, many, many puzzles, friendly matches and an end-of-camp four round tournament. We hope to do it again next year!
Group photo
Back row, left to right: Mark Hathaway, Zach Haden , Matt DeGroff, Clay Thompson, Oskar Meade, Matthew Phelps, Caden Eldridge, Dimitri Moore, Alex Peterson, Micah Barnette
Front row, left to right: Joe DeGroff, John Boylin, Jackson Denning, Alex Oliashirazi, Abram Hess, GM Swiercz, Duncan Bishop, Luke McCallister, Kaden Jeffers, Natasha Bradley
Photos by Seth Rutt