Mini Masters of Chess Gather in the Biggest Tournament in the State

By Jacob Bobst

Rainbow Elementary Chess Club accepting an award

Fierce battles of the mind clashed last week, at the Individual Scholastic Champions chess tournament, located within Montevallo's very own Comer Hall. The tournament, which allowed everyone from Kindergartners to High School Seniors compete. It was hosted by the Alabama Chess Federation and Montevallo's very own Chess Master and Math Professor Dr. Scott Varagona.

The tournament went on for two days, with the first day focusing on individual competition, and the second day focusing on team competition. The competition had winners both new and old, including reigning High School champion Stephen Adams, who managed to maintain his status as State Champion. He will move on to the Denker Tournament of High School Champions, in which he will represent the state of Alabama.

The Individual Scholastic Champions tournament is a yearly competition that takes place in a different region of the state each time it is held. Dr. Varagona had wanted to host a tournament in Montevallo ever since he became a professor, and saw this as his opportunity to do so. He has been preparing for the tournament for over a year. He said that he is looking forward to using Spring Break as a chance to finally relax after a year of stress.


See the results here:

	Individual Competition Results
	Champion	2nd	Third
High School (K-12)	Stephen W. Adams	Jonathan Rasberry, Varun Yarramsetti	-
Jr. High (K-8)	Arden Markin, Samson Sands	-	Logan Mercer, Cesar Juarez, Jr.
Elementary	David Xu Luo	Michael Guthrie, Rahul Boddupalli, Labdhi Mehta, Sijing Wu, Vishay Ram
Elementary (under 600 rating)	Willam Bao, Zachary Snow	-	Anton Timares, Max Rogers, Tyler McWilliams, Jonathan Parris
Primary	Siddharth Doppalapudi, Sarvagna Velidandla	-	Andrew Robertson Markin, Constance Wang, Rochelle Wu, Hudson Markin, Vinay Yerramsetti, Eshika Kudaravalli, Sherwood Dong

                             

Team Competition Results

Grade	School
Open	Bayside Academy, UMS-Wright A; Club: CaesarChess
Jr. High	Bumpus Middle School; Club: Chess Kids Nation
Elementary	Rainbow Elementary; Club: Madison City League, Freedom Chess Academy
Primary	Vestavia East; Club: Magic City U

Charts Courtesy Alabama Chess Federation