2008 New Jersey Grade School Championship

Six years ago I had an idea for a tournament and a location to hold it. The USCF has a grade school championship in December of each year in which children play only others in their grade. The NJSCF hosted this tournament more than 10 years ago. Since our scholastic tournaments are held in March and April I thought that a tournament held in November might be successful. I chose the Sunday before Thanksgiving so that it could be held on that same day each year (we already have a contract for November 22, 2009).

The first tournament in 2003 was a success with 236 children attending. In 2006, we had a record 300 children attending, and last year, attendance went down to 289. Over the years, feedback has been very positive. Our greatest challenge has been getting started on time. In that respect, I have made several changes. Our time for registration has changed to between 8:00am and 9:00am and at every scholastic tournament we now provide chess sets. Several years ago, I laminated 180 board numbers so we would save additional time and always have enough board numbers for this tournament (or so I thought).

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Mackenzie Molner NJ Champ!

Mackenzie Molner became the the NJ Open and NJ Champion this past Labor Day weekend by finishing with a 5-1 score, ahead of such notables as GM Michael Rohde, IM Dean Ippolito, former state champ Tom Bartell, IM Mikhail Zlotnikov and Dragan Milovanovic, all just a half-point behind.

The Open had 203 players participating in various class sections.

In the Under 1900 section, Paul Joseph and Steve Ferrero tied with Alex Katz, Steve Himel and Mackinley Tan at 4.5 points. The Under 1600 Section was also a multiple tie situation among John Mancuso, Ziping Liu, Eugene Shapiro, Tom Stanics, Dan Selyutin and Grant Oen.

Only two shared first prize in the Under 1200 section: Shivani Shanmugadas and Michael Yen.

Andy Chen ran away with the Under 900 section as did Josh Katz in the Under 500 section.

The Blitz championship was won by a 1668 rated player, Andrew Ding, ahead of several higher rated players.

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