Clear Winners and a Women's World Champion at the K-12!
December 14, 2009
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Matthew Liu, Photo Polly Wright
Results are in from the K-12 National Scholastic Championships (Dallas, Texas, Dec.11-13)! Surprisingly, there was only a tie for first in one section (ninth grade); in comparison, in the 2008 and 2007 K-12 Nationals, there were five ties each year. As typical for the Nationals, many sections featured upsets galore: In the 10th grade section, Matthew Liu won against four higher rated players in a row to top by a full point. In the 6th grade, James Black came out ahead of many higher rated players, including three experts, one of which was his own IS 318 team-mate, Justus Williams. See complete results here.

Also go to Monroi.com to play through many games from the weekend. Here are two nice wins from our new 3rd Grade Champion and 7th Grade Champion.

3904

3903
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Alexandra giving a simul, Photo courtesy chesspics.com


The weekend kicked off with Women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk's 44-board simul. Alexandra won 38 games, drew five and lost one to David Luscomb. Kosteniuk also conducted two book signings of her new DVD, "My Best Games" and her hot off the presses book, Diary of a Chess Queen, both of which you can order with a free autograph on chessqueen.com. You can also pick up the book at the USCF store. See a large gallery of photos from the simul and Dallas on chesspics.com. Read a detailed piece on Kosteniuk in an earlier CLO article.

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Alexandra signing her new book, Photo courtesy chesspics.com


Results Summary

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Joaquin Perkins, Photo Polly Wright 

Kindergarten
Individual Champion: Joaquin Perkins
Team Champions: The Village School, Houston, Texas
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Awonder Liang, Photo Polly Wright
1st Grade
Individual Champion: Awonder Liang
Team Champions: Dalton, New York
2nd Grade

Individual Champion : Rayan Taghizadeh
Team Champions: NEST School, New York
3rd Grade

Individual Champion : Ruifeng Li
Team Champions: Hunter College Campus School, New York
4th Grade

Individual Champion: Jeffrey Xiong (sp)
Team Champions: The Village School, Houston, TX
5th Grade

Individual Champion: Christopher Wu
Team Champions: Horace Mann, NY
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James Black, Photo Polly Wright
6th Grade
Individual Champion: James Black
Team Champions: IS 318, Brooklyn, NY
7th Grade

Individual Champion: Jarod Pamatmat
Team Champions: IS 318, Brooklyn, NY
8th Grade

Individual Champion: Vincent Zhang
Team Champions: Canyon Vista Middle School, Austin, TX
9th Grade

Individual Champion: Michael Chiang and Justin Karp
Team Champions: Horace Mann, New York
10th Grade

Individual Champion: Matthew Liu
Team Champions: Westwood, Austin, TX
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IM Marc Arnold , Photo Polly Wright

11th Grade
Individual Champion: Marc Arnold
Team: Bronx High School of Science, NY
12th Grade

Individual Champion: William Ong
Team: Bellaire High School, Houston, TX

Also look for Polly Wright's upcoming story in Chess Life Magazine, and more stories on CLO, including a wrap-up by popular parent blogger Mark Schein.