27th USA Jr Chess Olympics

Owen Shriver of 12 Corners School in Rochester won all 5 games to win the grade 7-12 section of the USA Jr Chess Olympics held at Pioneer Middle School last Saturday. Shriver beat Ethan Yung in round 4 and Abe Glasser in round 5 ( both rated over 200 pts higher than Owen) to win the Trophy and gold medal. Yung finished 2nd and Glasser 3rd.

Shriver, Yung and Glasser (all from 12 corners school) also combined to win the team gold medal, edging out Pioneer central by one half point. Keshequa Central from Nunda,NY got the bronze.

In the k-6 section Jacob Chen, another Rochester player, dominated going 5-0 to win the gold. Andy He, who got up early and traveled for 2 hours from Horseheads,NY to play, won the silver. Andy, playing in his first tournament, lost his first game but then won 4 in a row. Sam Santora from Kenmore got the bronze in a tie-break over Anoop Sankara.

It was a 3 way for first in the team competition with the Home School from the Buffalo area winning on tiebreaks. French Road school and Mendon school, both from Rochester got the silver and bronze.

Nageeb Umar, Kamal Ali, both of Global Concepts charter school of Lackawanna, and Jeff Schalberg from Pioneer tied for 1st in the unrated section. After an exciting blitz playoff, Umar came away with the Gold, Ali the silver and Schalberg the bronze.

Mark Clark won the Adult section, going undefeated 4-0.

80 kids participated in the event this year, and a lot of interesting and excellent chess was played.

Thanks to Mark Mieth and all the chess moms who helped with the pizza and pop. Thanks also to Tony Cirillo and Sam Copeland for their assistance and to Barry Davis for analyzing. Also to Mike McDuffie for the pictures. Lets do this again next year!