Scenes from SCIO

One of the 12 happy students from Scio

The winners of the K-6 section Justin Wedge, Mason Windus, and Z Wang Advanced Winner Holden Bernstein with Tournament Director Garry Reynolds Cody Hennard, 2nd place Advanced with "the old woodpusher" Third Place Advanced Nico Alvarado

Fourth in Advanced

Dillon Smith

I just was sent some pictures from the unrated scholastic tournament that was held in the Southern Tier on Saturday, December 1st. So it's time to do the report of the Scio Unrated Chess Tournament.

I can attest that it was a very well attended and run event- It was well worth the drive. Mr. Garry Reynolds "the old woodpusher" has been putting on these events twice a year. This event also was aided by Ms. Karen Insley the director of the Scio Central Chess Club. Both did a marvelous job.

A total of 44 students from Western New York and Pennslyvania participated. They ranged from 1st to 12th grade.

The winners in the K-6 section were: 1st Justin Wedge a sixth grader from Bradford, PA, 2nd Mason Windus a 6th grader from Scio, NY, 3rd "Z" Wang a 6th grader from Olean, NY.

The winner of the Advanced section (7-12) was Holden Bernstein an 11th grader from Olean who had a perfect 5-0 score. There was a 4 way tie for 2nd between Cody Hennard (4th grader from Bradford, PA), Nico Alvarado (7th grader from Bradford, PA), Dillon Smith (7th grader from Scio, NY), and Rory Burke (11th grader from Canisteo-Greenwood, NY). On tiebreaks as determined by performance score, 2nd went to Hennard, third to Alvarado, and 4th to Smith.

The buzz of the tournament, however, may have been the play of Felix Ling, a first grader from Amherst who played in the Advanced section and had a +2-3 score as he beat first an eleventh grader then a 12 th grader in rounds 1 and 2. His loss in round 3 was to another 11th grader- the tournament winner, and had had a winning position but missed going up a whole rook and instead traded queens. In round 4 he lost a hard fought game to another 11th grader. Such play earned him the nickname "The Little Asian Tiger." Perhaps if he continues to apply himself, he just might become a Tiger Woods-like prodigy on the chess board.