The Massachusetts individual scholastic championship, the Barry S. Spiegel Cup, was held on February 12th at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough. There was a new format this year in the High School section. Instead of being an invitational tournament, as it was for all the other sections, the High School championship was open to all players in grades 9 to 12, or age 15 and over in grades K-12. 19 players entered the section, making it the largest in the tournament since each invitational section had ten players. James Lung and Jacob Fauman each won their first three games, and they drew their game in the last round, setting up a blitz playoff which Lung won by two games to one. This entitles Lung to represent Massachusetts at the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in August. There was a question of whether this also made him the sole High School Champion of Massachusetts. At its March meeting the MACA Executive Board decided that Lung and Fauman are co-champions. Zaroug Jaleel and Tian Rossi tied for third place, with Jaleel winning the third place trophy on tiebreak. 

Mika Brattain won the 14 & Under championship and an invitation to the Barber Tournament of K-8 Champions with a score of 3½ - ½, including a last round win against Yi Yang, who until then had never lost a rated game. Yang scored 2½-1½, tying for second with three other players. On tiebreak Siddharth Arun won the 2nd place trophy, Yang won 3rd place, and Charlie Fauman and Andrew Liu won medals.

 

Evan Meyer swept the 11 & Under section with a 4 - 0 score, including wins against the second and third place fi nishers, Alex Fauman (3) and Tal Puhov (2½).

 

Lucy Cai likewise won the 8 & Under championship with 4 - 0. Her victims included Eddie Wang, who fi nished second with 3 points. Maxwell Zhao was third with 2½.

 

Brian Mottershead (the bearded man in the above photo) directed the tournament, assisted by George Mirijanian, Steve Frymer and Bob Messenger.