Congratulations, Samuel Sevian! The Holden, MA resident won the Continental Chess Championship, held June 9th – 19th in Medellin, Colombia. In doing so, the sixteenyear-old became the youngest winner of that event in history, and qualified himself for the next FIDE World Cup.

The 86th Annual Massachusetts Open was held on Memorial Day weekend, May 27th – 29th, in Marlboro. 259 players participated in the event. The winners, in the adult sections, were as follows:

• Championship – Lawyer Times
• Under 2100 – Ilya Figelman
• Under 1800 – Joseph Bennett
• Under 1500 – Ranjan Dey

Surprisingly, each of these players won their section outright, a rare occurrence in a large, six-round Swiss tournament.

You can learn more about the pivotal final-round game which earned Mr. Times the state title on p. 9.

Meanwhile, in the world of scholastic chess, the Barry S. Spiegel Cup was held on March 19th in Marlboro, determining the state champions in each scholastic section:

• High School – Andrew Liu
• 14 & Under – Brandon Wu
• 11 & Under – Dustin Lian, David Zhou
• 8 & Under – Alexander Meng, Victor Feng, Kelsey Liu

And of course, Mr. Liu would proceed to claim a share of the High School National Championship, capping off a stellar scholastic career. You can read more about his achievement on p. 25.