Pioneer wins K-12 at Olympics GCCS wins K-6

  Pioneer won the  K-12 and Global Concepts Charter school won the K-6 team titles at the 28th USA Jr Chess Olympics held at the Pioneer Middle School last Saturday. 73 of the best scholastic players in Western New York showed up and battled it out and some great chess was played.
 Pioneer junior Ryan Madden won the individual title in the K-12 section, beating expert Abe Glasser of Rochester in round 5 to go undefeated. Last year's winner Owen Shriver of  Brighton High was held to a draw by last year's K-6 winner Jacob Chen in round 5 and finished 2nd. Glasser got 3rd.
 Brighton High of Rochester finished 2nd to Pioneer, Global Concepts 3rd and Bishop Timon of Buffalo 4th.
 In the K-6 section Edwin Rosenberg, Wendell Lambert, Anoop Suncara, and Michael Dunaevsky all tied for 1st with Rosenberg from Brighton winning on tiebreaks. Sunkara is also from Brighton while Lambert goes to GCCS of Rochester and Dunaevsky goes to Pittsford. Tom Blum of GCCS of Lackawanna finished 5th.
  Brighton finished 2nd in the k-6 also, GCCS of Rochester 3rd and Pioneer 4th.
  In the unrated section Connor Paradis from Depew won with 4.5/5. Tied for 2nd was Helena and Cora Blackwell, Chris Ward, and Ethen Warner, all of Pioneer and Colby Hess from GCCS of Lackawanna.
Thanks to Michael McDuffie and Antonio Cirillo for assisting and Barry Davis for his expert analysis. Also to Bob Simpson for donating the medals.  Special thanks to the He and Peterson family for traveling 2 hrs ffrom Horseheads NY to play. Hope to see you again next year!