Champions Crowned in Columbus as K-6 Concludes

As covered in last night's Flash Report, 1,586 players from 42 states competed in the National Elementary School Championship in Columbus, Ohio from April 26 through 28. Below is a detailed report with photos and annotated games from our newest national champions. Full standings are available here.

K-6

Only three players entered the final day atop the standings, but after round six, there were eight players tied for first with a score of 5/6. This was because co-leaders Vihaan Jammalamadaka and Austin Zhao drew their head-to-head encounter while the third co-leader, Tariq Yue, also drew his game against Jashith Karthi. This allowed five other players to catch up to the trio by winning their games.

Of the new co-leaders, the victories of Analaya Muneepeerakul and Nehanraj Ramesh are annotated below:

The stakes for the final round couldn't be higher: if you're playing on one of the top four boards and you win, you're at least a co-champion. Surely, there would be at least one decisive outcome, if not three or four! And yet...

The top two boards of the final round of the K-6 Championship: Tariq Yue (L, front) against Rocco Degeest, with Eden You and Vihaan Jammalamadaka squaring off in the background (Photo Caroline King)

The first game to end in a draw was the top board, where Yue and Rocco Degeest both had chances to pull out a win in a very complicated game that fittingly ended in a perpetual check.

Now, here's where things start getting weird. On both boards two and three, the higher-rated players were on the verge of losing. Eden You had ample compensation for his Exchange sac against Jammalamadaka, while Zhao just had to keep shuffling pieces against Ramesh. And yet, both You and Zhao agreed to draws in the following positions:

For those keeping score, this means that the game on board four is now a winner-take-all affair. Indeed, Muneepeerakul was on track to break through after developing a furious attack straight out of the opening. But, around the time boards two and three shook hands, Artemii Khanbutaev had managed to survive the worst of his opponent's attack.

Artemii Khanbutaev survived a ferocious attack to claim the outright K-6 Championship (Photo Caroline King)

As is often the case when a player lets an advantage slip, the follow-up blunder would rear its head shortly. Khanbutaev capitalized, converted, and became the sole K-6 Champion as a result:

Our K-6 Champion, Illinois's Artemii Khanbutaev (Photo Caroline King)

New York schools swept the top five places in the team standings. Speyer Legacy School (18/28) finished a full point ahead of Success Academy Midtown West, who finished a half-point ahead of Tag Young Scholars and Dalton. Collegiate School rounded out the "NY Five."

Speyer Legacy School K-6 Team (Photo Caroline King)

K-5

Compared to the chaos of the K-6, in the K-5 Championship the stakes were clear. Ted Wang and Vivan Prakash Mulay entered Sunday as the only players with 5/5 scores. Importantly, only two players (Sivavishnu Srinivasan and Sharath Radhakrishnan) trailed the leaders by a half-point, and these two players were also facing off in round six.

Radhakrishnan (L) was unable to win on demand against Wang, but not for lack of effort (Photo Caroline King)

What this meant was, if the game on board one produced a winner, then a draw against the winner from board two would be sufficient to clinch outright first. Ted Wang was ready:

On board two, Radhakrishnan survived an early attack and converted the extra piece with relative ease:

In round seven, the battle for the championship was fittingly tense. Radhakrishnan had a pleasant position out of the opening, which he managed to translate into a ridiculously powerful knight on Wang's seventh rank. But Wang managed to play around the steed with ease, winning a pawn and outplaying his opponent in the ensuing endgame.

With his win, Wang not only won the K-5 Championship outright, but he did so with a perfect 7/7 score!

Photo Caroline King

Not to be done by their K-6 counterparts, here the top seven teams all hailed from New York. PS 77 Lower Lab was untouchable, with a 19/28 score that put them a full five points ahead of Speyer Legacy School and Success Academy Union Square, which finished second and third, respectively, on tiebreaks with 14/28 scores.

K-3

In the K-3 Championship, two players once again entered Sunday as the only 5/5 scores. In their head-to-head battle, Sasha Milo Schaefer took advantage of Hardy Gu's light-squared bishop's lack of squares and took pole position headed into the final round.

There, Schaefer was the one playing for a win, despite only needing a draw, against Ian Avery Singh.

A great showing for Sasha Milo Schaefer (Photo Caroline King)

The players shook hands peacefully, crowning Schafer the K-3 Champion with a 6½/7 score.

K-3 Champion Sasha Schaefer (courtesy of the subject)

A critical game in the sixth round could have kept another player in the hunt to tie Schaefer, but this critical draw instead left the two players fighting for a share of second:

Breaking up the New York monotony at the top, Florida's Oak Hall (not pictured) won the K-3 Championship with a 20/28 score, ahead of PS 77 Lower Lab (18½/28) and fellow New Yorkers Elizabeth M. Baker Elementary School (17/28).

K-1

With a draw between the only two players with 6/6 scores (Devansh Vellanki and Ajay Sreenivasan) in round seven, the K-1 Championship ended up producing as many champions as the other three sections combined. Mustafa Muhammad joined the co-leaders by completing his own Semi-Swiss Gambit, drawing his first-round game but winning his next six!

From left (and in tiebreak order): Devansh Vellanki, Ajay Sreenivasan, Mustafa Muhammad (Photo Caroline King)

In the team standings, it was again all New York on the podium. Trinity School won with a 19/28 score, a full-point ahead of Dalton (18/28), which in turn finished a full-point ahead of PS 77 Lower Lab.

Trinity School won the K-1 Championship, and was actually the only team winner to feature an individual champion on their roster (Photo Caroline King)

Quick Links

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