Prize winners at the 2nd Barry S. Spiegel Cup Qualifier, held December 16th 2012 at the Crowne Plaza in Woburn.

Age 14 & Under Section

1st: Loring Lauretti 3½-½
2nd: Alvin Tan 3-1
3rd-4th: Luke Lung, Jason Tang 2½-1½

Age 11 & Under Section

1st-2nd: Anton Barash (playoff winner), Maxwell Zhao 4-0
3rd-8th: Alan Sikarov, Alon Trogan, Eric Feng, Henry Liu, Luke Randolph, Brian Yin 3-1

Age 8 & Under Section

1st: Alex Yu 4-0
2nd-4th: Larry Jin, Aahan Mehra, Eric Han 3-1

Novice Under 800 Section

1st: Alexander Bao 4-0
2nd-3rd: Michael Yu, Ryan Saklad 3-1

Novice Under 400 Section

1st: Michael Nurnberger 4-0
2nd-5th: Maddox Leveque, Swapnesh Baguli, Madison Dietl, Nicholas Holt-Doucette

Players are listed in tiebreak order.

The tournament directors were Bob Messenger, Nathan Smolensky, George Mirijanian and Steve Frymer.
 

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

Prize winners at the Harry Nelson Pillsbury Memorial, held December 2nd at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlboro:

Open Section

1st GM Alexander Ivanov 3½-½
2nd-3rd IM David Vigorito, Grant Xu 3-1
Top U2100  Blaise Aguirre, Tian Rossi, Conway Xu 2½-1½

Under 1900 Section

1st Peter Teodorescu 4-0
2nd Gary Cote 3½-½
Top U1750 Syed Al-Mamun 3-1

Under 1600 Section

1st-2nd Joseph Treacy, Maxwell Zhao 3½-½
Top Under 1400 Lisa DeBenedictis 3-1

Under 1200 Section

1st Sandra Shur 3½-½
2nd Raghav Srinivasan 3-1
3rd Matthew Sullivan 3-1
Top Under 1000 Rohan Krishnan 3-1
Top Under 800 Giorgio Roscini 2-2
Top Under 600 Srini Veeravanallur 2-2
Top Unrated Robert Cote 2-2

There were a total of 62 players.  Bob Messenger and George Mirijanian directed.
 

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

Prize winners at the 1st Spiegel Cup Qualifier, held November 18th at the Crowne Plaza in Woburn:

Age 14 & Under

1st-5th: Evan Meyer (playoff winner), Charlie Fauman, Alvin Tan, Luke Lung, Nithin Kavi, all with 3-1

Age 11 & Under

1st: Alex Fauman 4-0
2nd: Eddie Wei 3½-½
3rd-7th: Alan Sikarov, Alon Trogan, David Sun, Henry Liu, Jucy Cai 3-1

Age 8 & Under

1st: Luke Randolph 3½-½
2nd-4th: Ben Fauman, Eric Han, Brian Yin 3-1

Novice Under 800

1st: Ellis O'Donnell 4-0
2nd: Adrian Seeger 3-1
3rd-4th: Ryan Saklad, Michael Yu 2½-1½

Novice Under 400

1st: Michael Nurnberger 4-0
2nd-5th: William Kim, Andrew Cass, Amy Khoshbin, Benjamin Holman 3-1

There were a total of 85 players.  Bob Messenger was the chief director, assisted by George Mirijanian, Doc Kinne and Steve Frymer.
 

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

In Girls-U10 Carissa Yip of Chelmsford finished 5.5-5.5.

In Open-U18 Robert Perez of MIT finished 7-4.

In Open-U14 Kapil Chandran of Connecticut finished 5.5-5.5 and Chris Gu of Rhode Island finished 7.5-3.5.

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member

Below is the e-mail from USCF:

=============================================================== 

Hello Chess Leaders,

Tiffany Wang
MACA Webmaster

Open Section:

1st-2nd  IM James Rizzitano, Lawyer Times 3½-½
Top U2100  Leonid Tkach, Arthur Tang 2½-1½

Under 1900 Section:

1st-2nd  Howard Goldowsky, Jason Tang 3½-½
Top U1750  Robert Holmgren, Erik Elbieh, Yuanzhe Wang 3-1

Under 1600 Section:

1st-3rd: Peter Teodorescu, Robert Walton Jr 3½-½
1st-3rd/Top U1350  Alexander Cheung

Under 1200 Section:

1st-2nd  Patrick Sullivan, Sondra Shur 4-0
3rd Matthew Sullivan 3-1
Top U1000 Aaron Zhang 3-1
Top U800  Jerry Tan 2½-1½
Top U600  Srini Veeravanallur2-2
Top Unrated  Benjamin Johnson-Staub 2½-1½

95 players – the highest turnout in many years!
Directed by Bob Messenger and George Mirijanian
 

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

The Quincy Chess Club

Doc Kinne
MACA Correspondent

This is a scholastic tournament series at Papa Gino's and Burger King
in the suburbs to support scholastic activity. These are the leaders,
showing total points and total events attended.

Here is the updated Grand Prix standings after yesterday's event:

Here are the leaders in Grand Prix:
RAGHAV SRINIVASAN	9.5	4
AAHAN SAMIR MEHRA	9	3
EVAN MACLURE    	8	3
YUANZHE WANG    	8	3
ALEX YU         	7.5	3
DAVID ZHU SUN	        7.5	4
AARON HAOXIANG ZHANG	7	3
BHARATH HEGGADAHALLI	6.5	2
ADAM MAIMON     	6	2
VIGNESH L VANCHINATHAN	6	2

Steve Frymer
MACA Correspondent

The Quincy Chess Club

IM David Vigorito (Photo by Bob Oresick)

Doc Kinne
MACA Correspondent

by Doc Kinne

One of the responsibilities of MACA as the MA State Affiliate is to recruit and select state delegates to the USCF for the coming year. Among other things, these Delegates attend the Annual USCF Delegate Meeting, held during the US Open to propose and approve legislation of various types, from By-Laws to various Committees. Each "state" - and I put that in quotes because, according to the USCF Northern CA and Southern CA are states, as is the District of Columbia - get a number of Delegates based on their USCF population. Massachusetts is allocated three. We select three Primary Delegates, and also three Alternate Delegates to step up in case something happens with the Primary Delegates. Without further ado, here are the 2013 MA USCF Delegates!

 Primary Delegates

1) Ken Ballou

Ken has been an MA Delegate for a number of years. He is a National USCF Tournament Director, and a FIDE Arbiter. Ken is active on the Elections, Rules, and Tournament Director Certification Committees of the Federation. He is part of the Metrowest Chess Club where he is on the Tournament Directing Staff.

 2) Bob Messenger

Bob is a very active Associate National USCF Tournament Director having directed more than 2000 sections in 420 different events since 1991. Last year he was created a FIDE Arbiter. Politically, Bob is also very active holding the office of Treasurer of MACA as well as heading various Committees on that Board. He is also President of the New England Chess Association. In his non-MA time he directs for the CCA.

 3) Richard "Doc" Kinne

Doc is new after having returned to chess almost a year and a half ago. He is a Local USCF Tournament Director, Clerk for the Boylston Chess Club, and on the MACA Board of Directors. This is his first time as a Delegate, and this will also be his first US Open.

 Alternate Delegates 

 1) Walter Driscoll, III

Walter is a member of the MACA Board of Directors. He is a Local USCF Tournament Director where he mainly organizes and directs the Charles Drafts Memorial Tournament at the Boylston Chess Club.

 2) Nathan Smolensky

Nathan, a recent BU graduate, is a new member of the MACA Board of Directors. He is also on the Boylston Chess Club Board and active in reviving that club's scholastic program. As a Local USCF Tournament Director Nathan is very active on the Boylston's Directing Staff as well.

 3) National Master Andrew Wang

At 17 Andrew has already built up an impressive playing resume. He has been MA State Scholastic Champion multiple times, National Scholastic Champion, and also part of the USCF All-American Team for several years. This will be his first foray into chess politics.

Doc Kinne
MACA Board Member

It is with regret, and not a little sense of loss, that the MA Chess Association must announce the resignation of Brian Mottershead from the Board.

Brian headed up MACA's Scholastic Committee for several years and was the Chief Tournament Director for MACA's Scholastic State Championship Cycle as well rising to the rank of USCF Senior Tournament Director in order to effectively do the job. We're sure that many of the Commonwealth's youth players will miss seeing Brian in the Tournament Hall. Directing scholastic tournaments, and balancing the needs and wants of its several participants, is not an easy thing, but Brian pulled it off.

At its 30 September meeting the Board passed a resolution thanking Brian Mottershead for his years of service to Massachusetts chess, and wishing him the best of luck in his future plans. We look forward to Brian carving a new niche for himself in the chess community soon.

Doc Kinne
MACA Board Member

The Roche Brother's Grocery Store Community Room in Quincy was like most of the community rooms I'd been in in greater Boston, if somewhat larger and a bit better decorated with scholastic portraits taken in local colleges. But that wasn't the thing that what you first noticed when walking into the room last Wednesday evening. Easily the first thing you noticed was Dan Racine, the new Quincy Chess Club's founder, greeting people at the door, answering questions and watching everything connected with this new project.

Racine has gathered a good bit of community support for his club. The Roche Brothers are giving the club the Community Room free once a week. Many club members are business owners in the community that can be drawn upon for support and perhaps other playing sites as the club expands. I was impressed with both the solidity that the club has established now, as well as the solid plans for expansion and publicity that are in the works.

Doc Kinne
MACA Correspondent

These last two weeks are filled with US Delegate events - the national political party conventions - making this month a political junkie's dream! What may be news to you is that the chess world has something similar (although, at times, I hope, better!) and you can be involved!

The US Open is one of the largest and most important general chess events in the country, and its not all about those nine critical games. One of the things that happens during the US Open every year is the USCF Delegate's Meeting. While the USCF Office and the USCF Executive Board run the day-to-day operations of the Federation, the policy decisions and overall aims are decided by a 150-person Board of Delegates that meet every year at the US Open.

Each USCF "state" (I put that in quotes because, for example, as far as the USCF is concerned, there is a N. California and a S. California) has a certain number of Delegates based on their USCF membership. Choosing those Delegates, and submitting their names to the Federation, is the responsibility of the State Chess Associations. A body of Primary and Alternate Delegates - in the case of MA, three of each - is recruited and chosen by the MACA Board in our case. These names are submitted to the Federation near the end of the year and their terms of office go from January to January. Three Alternate Delegates are chosen in case any of the Primary Delegates cannot fulfill their responsibilities during the year.

So what does a USCF Delegate do? Their primary responsibility is to attend the Annual Delegate's Meeting, representing their state and its membership, during the last weekend of the US Open. This is when the actual business gets done, and these two meetings don't interfere with the US Open playing schedule. If you've been to the US Open you might also know that from Wednesday to Friday there are several workshops held. This is where a lot of the discussions take place regarding things that come up during the Delegates Meeting, so it can be important, but not critical, to attend the areas that you, or your constituents, are interested in. These meetings may conflict if you're on an accelerated playing schedule, but not if you're on the traditional playing schedule.

You can read about Al Lawrence's impression of the 2012 Delegate's Meeting in Vancouver here
 
Otherwise, during the year, Delegates are part of the USCF representative infrastructure. It's possible that people may want to contact you regarding a question or a problem they have regarding the Federation. Also, while you don't need to be a Delegate to serve on a USCF Committee, statistically, usually most USCF Committee members are Delegates.

So, are you going to the US Open in Madison, WI next year? How would you like to take an active hand in both shaping the policies of your USCF and representing the active tournament chess players in your state? The MA Chess Association is currently seeking a slate of three Primary and three Alternate Delegates to represent MA to the USCF during its 2013 Delegates Meeting at the US Open next August in Madison.

Are you a USCF member and interested in putting your name in the ring? Have additional questions? Contact Doc Kinne at kinnerc @ gmail.com

Doc Kinne
MACA Board Member

by Bob Messenger & Doc Kinne

BCC Member IM David Vigorito Plots His Way to the Top During the 1st Round of the 72nd New England Open (Photo by Kinne)

 Over the Labor Day weekend the New England Open, and associated side events, were held in Leominster, MA. After a tough battle lasting three days, the defending title holder, International Master Igor Foygel, was defeated by a triad of 2012 New England Champions: USCF Life Senior Master Denys Shmelov, International Master David Vigorito, and International Master Jonathan Yedidia!

Combined, the New England Open Championship had 162 players battling for the New England Open Championship title, class titles, scholastic titles, and the 2012 New England Blitz Championship title. The Open Section, nicely, was FIDE-rated as the tournament was directed by FIDE Arbiter, and the New England Chess Association President, Robert Messenger. He was aided by National Tournament Director George Mirijanian.

Further down the Open section was nicely populated as well with such luminaries as FIDE Master Chris Chase, USCF Life Master Lawyer Times, and Woman Candidate Master Natasha Christiansen, who received her highest rating in 14 years and is on her way to breaking through the 2000 "glass ceiling" very soon, all participating.

The Scholastic tournaments were well attended during all of the three days with K-12 being held on Saturday, K-3 on Sunday, and K-6 on Monday. The kids provided a lively counterpoint to the older players largely playing in the Open Tournament, but younger players such as  7 year old Eddie Wei decided to storm the ramparts and play with the big boys and girls in the Open Section!

The 2012 New England Blitz Championship, a 10 round tournament drawing a respectable 18 players, was won by USCF Life Master Vadim Martirosov who gained a decisive 9/10 points, fully 1.5 points ahead of 2nd place winner 1st Category Frank Wang.

All in all the 72nd New England Championship was a great success and a wonderful way for New England to start off its Fall chess season!

Individual section results can be seen below.

New scholastic player Liam Brown concentrates on his game during the 2012 New England Open Scholastic K-12 in Leominster, MA (Photo by Kinne)

72nd New England Open Top Prize Winners
Open: IM David Vigorito, FM Denys Shmelov, IM Jonathan Yedidia
U2000: Aashish Welling
U1750: John Brady
U1500: Robert Watson Jr, Andrew Stone
K-12 U1500: Yuanzhe Wang
K-12 U1000: James Cassidy, Alex Self
K-6 U1400: David McCabe
K-6 U800: Kathleen Wang, Samuel Gloss, Abhinav Govindaraju

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

Irina Dronova, Lauren Smorgonsky's mom, is trying to revive scholastic chess at Papa Gino's in metrowest.

The first event is on 22 July at Papa Gino's in Waltham, near the Lexington T/L.

See MACA tournament calendar for details.

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member

The following players won prizes for the most interesting games played at the 81st Massachusetts Open:

Open section: GM Alexander Ivanov, for his game vs. FM John Curdo

U2200 section: Jesse Nicholas, for his game vs. John Elmore

U2000 section: Tom Keegan, for his game vs. Cale McCormick

U1800 section: Vyacheslav Mayorskiy, for his game vs. Tom Provost

U1600 section: Robert Walton Jr, for his game vs. Lucy Cai

U1400 section: Edward Chiu, for his game vs. Vignesh Vanchinathan

The games were judged by IM Jim Rizzitano.  Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to our judge!

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

Submitted by G. Mirijanian, 2012 MACA elections commissioner

Tiffany Wang
MACA Webmaster

81st Massachusetts Open
Prize Winners

Webmaster Note: Find all Mass Open events crosstables click here.

Open Section

1st                          GM Alexander Ivanov
2nd-3rd                   Denys Shmelov, Robert Perez
1st U2300                Andrew Wang
= 2nd U2300           Mika Brattain, FM John Curdo, Andrew Liu, Tian Rossi

Under 2200 Section 

1st-3rd                    Jesse Nicholas, Robert J King, Siddharth Arun

Under 2000 Section

1st                         Michael Pascetta (CT)
2nd-3rd                  Max Valau, Joseph Han (CT)

Under 1800 Section

1st                         Daniel Tiedemann
2nd                        Gregory Anderson (ME)
3rd                        Thomas Sifter 

Under 1600 Section 

1st                         Peter Teodorescu
2nd                        Sean Blaisdell
= 3rd                     Edward Morris, Eddie Wei 

Under 1400 Section 

1st                         Jeremy Bader (unrated)
2nd                        Alan Sikarov
= 3rd                     Stefan Grosser
=3rd / 1st U1200    Andrew Stone
=2nd U1200           Charley Lei, Daniel Shimberg (RI) 

K-12 U1500 Section 

1st                        Stefan Grosser
2nd-3rd                 Adam Maimon, Luke Randolph 

K-12 U1000 Section 

1st                        Jeff Gao
= 2nd-3rd              Patrick Ding (CT), Nicholas Woodman, Giorgio Roscini, Gene Kuperman 

K-6 U1400 Section 

1st                        Alvin Tan
2nd                       Luke Randolph
= 3rd                    Alon Trogan, Cheney Zhang, Nicholas Woodman 

K-6 U800 Section 

1st                       Bharath Heggadahalli
= 2nd-3rd             Raghav Srinivasan, Amrit Subramanian, Samuel Gloss 

K-3 U1200 Section 

1st-2nd                Alex Yu, Ben Fauman
= 3rd                   Abhinav Govindaraju (NH), Vignesh Vanchinathan 

K-3 U600 Section 

1st                      Raghav Srinivasan
= 2nd-3rd            Isaac Tang, Sei Young Jang
 
Massachusetts Blitz Championship 

1st                      Jorge Sammour-Hasbun (RI)
= 2nd                  Vadim Martirosov, Chris Williams
= U2000              Agustin Garcia, Mateos Sahakian
= U1800              Eric Strickland, Matt Phelps

Bob Messenger
Chief TD

The Massachusetts contingent to the 2012 National Elementary Championship in Nashville this weekend was small but proud.

Four Massachusetts youngsters competed including:

Jason Tang, who secured a trophy for 14th place out of 255 competitors with 5.5 points (out of 7 rounds) in the K-3 Championship section.

Carissa Yip scored 5 points which merited a tied for 25th place trophy, also in the K-3 Championship section.

Benjamin Fauman, competing in the K-1 Championship, scored 5 points which earned him a trophy for 24th place out of 289 competitors.

Alex Fauman, competing in the K-5 Championship, scored 4 points for 94th place out of 284 competitors in that section.

Massachusetts' own Ken Ballou served as chief TD for the K3 championship section.

The 8 section tournament saw a total of over 2200 young chess players for the 3 day event.

Next April's "supernational" tournament in Nashville should draw at least 5000 scholastic chess players in the 20 section K through 12 event.  

Eric Fauman
Parent Contributor

The 2012 Spring Girls Chess Tournament took place on May 6th, 2012 at Embassy Suites hotel at Marlborough. It brought 16 girls from all over the state. Girls were competing in two sections: Open and Novice Under 700.

Open Section results:

1st - Jenny R Qiu of Acton with a perfect score 4 points

2nd - Lauren Smorgonsky of Worcester 1.5 points

3rd - Prakalya Chandrasekar of Ashland 1.5 points

2nd and 3rd place winners were decided on a tiebreak.

Novice Under 700 Section results:

5 players tied with 3 points for 1-5 places and winners were decided on a tiebreak.

1st - Kathleen Wang of Shrewsbury

2nd - Audrey E Gaines of Shrewsbury

3rd - Mary Mealdey Ings of Chestnut Hill

Medal winners:

4th - Shrunotra San of Ashland

5th - Sandra Shur of Agawam

The newcomer players were Maya Makarovsky of Newton and Olivia Romito of Natick.

Irina Dronova was the organizer and chief tournament director, assisted by Bob Messenger. 

Bob Messenger
Assistant TD

Bob Messenger
MACA Board Member

Bob Messenger
MACA Board Member

1st-2nd: Eddie Wang of Acton, Aaron Dunigan AtLee of Centerville, Edward Chiu of Brighton (also 1st U1000) and Alvin Tan of Westwood (also 1st U1000), 3.5-0.5 

George Mirijanian
MACA President

High School: Newton North...........................W. Huang, T. Rossi, J. Fauman, R. Han

Middle School: Diamond/Lexington..............M. Brattain, V. Amrit, D. Amirault, M. Jones

Elementary School: Gates/Acton..................A. Wang, D, Shih, E. Wang, A. H. Zhang

Primary School: Conant/Acton......................A. Yu, A. Ying, J. Cui, E. Zhong

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Top prize winner is in boldface.

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

K-12 Division: 10 teams

1st Wildcats [Weston HS]...3.5-0.5 [Saini, Lurie, Luzzi and Hedayat]...on tie-break over Chess Patriots [Wu, Qiu, Qiu and Wu]

K-5 Division: 4 teams

1st Four White Knights...4-0 [Kavi, Yin, Wang and Yang]

K-3 Division: 8 teams

1st R2SJ...3.5-0.5 [Randolph, Randolph, Shu and Jin]

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Run for a Spot on the MACA Board of Directors! 

George Mirijanian
MACA President

8U championship:

Jiaying 'Lucy' Cai, Lexington,...........................4-0

11U championship:

Evan Meyer, Newton,.......................................4-0

14U championship:

Mika Brattain, Lexington,................................3.5-0.5

High School championship:

Jacob Fauman, Newton, and James Lung, Lexington, both 3.5-0.5; James Lung won the blitz playoff.

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

Dmitry Barash's State Singles Championship Statistics page has been updated here.

Tiffany Wang
MACA Webmaster

SPIEGEL CUP STATISTICS

In view of shortly forthcoming Spiegel Cup finals I decided to look at the history of those tournaments. Published on the Web (on MACA and USCF) cross tables go back to beginning of 90s (and the history perhaps goes even further), but the number of players varied a lot in 90s, for example at the end of 90s there were mostly 6 players in each age group. Note that in Maryland (where I lived for 7 years prior to moving to MA) the similar finals were called Sweet 16 (and obviously had 16 players per age). Ten seems to me to be the optimal number to exclude random players, and to include all the top ones.

Therefore I set the start point in 2001, since when there were constantly 10 players in each group (with couple exceptions during all 12 years).

It’s easy to notice that in all ages except 8&U tournaments became much stronger by the average rating.

Top Players by overall number of points and tournaments

Top players by the number of award winnings (only top 3 places count in each final)

ANDREW WANG            7            5 wins (!!!) and 2 second places (!) but he skipped two finals in 2007 and 2008

JAMES LUNG            6            Unique achievement: never was the champion but 6 times in a row (!) got trophies (one third place and 5 second places)

MIKA BRATTAIN            5            5 times in a row was awarded (2 wins, one second place and 3 third places)

WINSTON HUANG            5            6 participations in a row, and during the last 5 of them he got 2 first places and 3 third

JOSH BAKKER            4            2 wins, one second place and one third, but in the middle he was 5^th in 2004

MAX ENKIN            4            4 trophies in 4 participations: third place (2002), 2 second ones (2001, 2003), and a win (2007)

REILLY NATHANS            4            2 wins and 2 third places in 8 finals (2001-2007, 2009)

CHRIS WILLIAMS            4            2 wins and 2 third places in 8 consecutive tournaments (2001-2008)

Players, who won finals more than once:

ANDREW WANG            5

JOSH BAKKER            2

MIKA BRATTAIN            2

WINSTON HUANG            2

BARY LISAK            2

REILLY NATHANS            2

JACK STOLERMAN            2

CHRIS WILLIAMS            2

GRANT XU            2

FELIX YANG            2

No one of them played only twice. From interesting decisions the following should be mentioned:

- Bary Lisak played 3 times (2005-2006, 2009): 2 wins, then second place.

- Jack Stolerman played 3 consecutive times (2001-2003): two wins, then 4^th place.

- Grant Xu played 3 consecutive times (2009-2011): 10^th place and two next wins(!).

All others from the above list played at least 5 events.

If statistics talks only about the past, it is incomplete! Let’s try to predict the future based on the past results.

Obviously no one knows who will win this year finals, but we can look who has better chances. I divided each final into two parts by rating to see if the second half has any chances to win or at least to get trophies.

The chance to become a champion for a player from the second half is really small – it happened only twice in 44 finals! In 2007 Genesis LUNG, who was only 6-th by rating became a champion in 14&U.

In 2002 Daniel WITKE was the last 10-th by rating in 8&U but became the champion!

In all(!) other cases winners were from the first half.

But it’s quite possible to win a trophy for a lower rated player. In average two players from the second half won trophy (second or third place) each year out of 8 such trophies.

Note 1. I don’t have tie-breaks for 2006 and 2011 (all other tables were published on MACA page with places ordered by tie-breaks). I calculated the tie-breaks myself, hopefully I did it right.

Note 2. Although finalists were determined and pared by rating on February the 1^st(usually), I used their last rating before the tournament (the one used by USCF).

Dmitry Barash

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member

Qualifier 4 winners were the following:

8U...Maxwell Zhao of Bolton

11U...Alan Sikarov of Newton

14U...Bowen Wang of South Easton

Steve Frymer
Assistant TD

The state finals are scheduled for 12 February 2012 at the Best Western/Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough.

For determining the top 6 rated in divisions 8U, 11U and 14U we are using the official February ratings.

These ratings will become 99.9% final on 7 January 2012 PRIOR to Qualifier #4. 

If you have questions pertaining to invitations you can address them to me at SFrymer@rcn.com.

The High School division is OPEN to any high school player under the age of 20. Any other eligibility questions will be decided by the MACA Scholastic Committee. 

Steve Frymer
MACA Board Member