On March 1, 2003 Hampton Cove Elementary School hosted the Bishop Bash II Scholastic Chess Tournament. Gerald Larson ran the show and had plenty of help from members of the Hampton Cove Elementary School Chess Club Committe including Teri Rotenberger, Pam Zoller, David Campbell, Sandy Campbell, and Susan Fredrickson and many HCC members including Jerry Wheeler, Bert Gower, Bill Melvin, David Hayes, Chris Lasky, Josh McClellan, Don Wade, and me (Roger McIntyre).

When I arrived around 8:30am it looked like everything was well prepared. Bert Gower was at the front entrance greeting the guests and directing them in the right direction. Jerry Wheeler, Susan Fredrickson, Sandy Campbell and Julie Rice were processing the registrations. Gerald Larson was briskly walking up and down the halls, briefly stopping at various stations before moving on to the next as tournament directors tend to do.

Three different classrooms were designated as the playing areas for each of the three sections: Open (K-12), Elementary (K-5), and Primary (K-3). The Cafeteria was designated as the meeting room and had a concession stand, book store and a stage with microphone for announcements, raffles, and trophy presentations. Chess problems were posted on the hallway walls. Clearly Hampton Cove put forth a lot of effort in preparing for this tournament. Hats off to them.

As is usually the case the tournament got off to a late start. At about 9:30am, the designated cutoff time for registration, more than 30 preregistered players still hadn't showed up. This caused some concern but my main concern was the attendance from Horizon Elementary School where I volunteer as a chess instructor. I wasn't sure how many students from Horizon were going to show up but I hadn't seen Dennis Dergunov yet. He is one of Horizon's stronger players and I knew he wanted to play here. The registration time was extended and the mandatory 10:00am players meeting didn't start until after 10:30am. As it turned out only nine of the 132 registered players from 26 different schools didn't show, six players from Horizon came (which is better than I hoped for), and Dennis did make it.

Once the tournament got started things seemed to go along fairly smoothly. Bill and I were assigned to be tournament directors in the Primary section. One thing that didn't seem to work too well in our section was the way the final results of each game was recorded. Each board had a small form where each player was to write their name, record which side won, and sign it. They were supposed to hand it to a TD before leaving the room. This procedure may work well in the other sections but we were dealing with kindergarten through third graders here. Bill came up with another method where the players would raise their hand when they thought the game was over and he would come over and record the results. This method was much simpler, faster, and more accurate. Yea, we're rebels! What can they do? Cut our pay? Fire us? We're running this show how we see fit.

After each round a raffle was held where they gave away toys, books, chess bags, and other goodies. Every time a number was called a chorus of ahs! was let out by the kids who almost had the right number, if only the last two numbers were reversed or if that two was a one! The crowd of kids would press closer and closer to Pam as she called out the numbers until she would tell them to move back. They would reluctantly inch back a bit and then start pressing forward again almost immediately. I got a kick out of watching it. It reminded me of some of the wildlife documentaries I watch on the Discovery Channel where a pack of hyenas surround a small group of lions eating their kill. The hyenas would press forward hoping to get some of the meal until a lion would let out a roar and they would back off a bit. Just an observation.

Primary Antics

I noticed a king lying down on one of the boards while both players continued playing as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Obviously resignation wasn't intended so I picked up the king and placed it on what I thought was the most likely square... and they continued playing as if nothing out of the ordinary ever happened.

One boy kept meticulous score and won all of his opponent's pieces but he didn't know how to checkmate with a whole army against a lone king. He ended up drawing the first round up massive material by running out of time. In the second round he once again obtained a huge advantage against his opponent but ended up stalemating him.

One boy raised his hand and when Bill and I came over he claimed the game he was playing was drawn because he offered his opponent a "stalemate" and she shook his hand. He had a totally lost position on the board and it was clear that his opponent didn't want the draw so Bill told them to play on. Ironically the game ended in stalemate a few moves later.

One girl's opponent didn't show up at start time so a clock was placed on the game. Trying to get a third grader to sit still for 30 minutes while her opponent's clock ticks down is like trying to clip a ferret's toenails. After a few minutes she was arranging the pieces in different patterns on the board. I saw no harm in that so I let her continue but I had to step in when she starting hitting both sides of the clock.

Individual Results

The Elementary section was the largest of the three sections with 68 players. Owen Scott pulled out a mild upset when he won it with a perfect score of five. He was the third highest rated player going in, rated behind Victor Cheng and Michael Bush. Kyle Julian came in second with 4.5 points. Victor Cheng, Lee Richert, Sanket Shah, Madison Smith, Alex Chen, Christy Hsu, Michael Bush, and Trey Manning all finished with four points. I'm especially proud of Lee Richert's fourth place finish. He is a member of the Horizon Chess Club and entered this tournament unrated.

The fourth round was probably the most critical in the Primary section. The top three seeds: Patrick Bryant, Samuel Randels, and Dennis Dergunov all had three points going into it. Patrick and Samuel were playing each other on board one while Dennis played the lower rated Tchaasu Taylor. If I was playing someone whose last name ended in "ov" I think I would be intimidated. Tchaasu, however, keep his composure and quickly obtained a huge opening advantage. Dennis knew he was in trouble and offered Tchaasu a draw but it was wisely refused. A few moves later Tchaasu's kingside attack forced Dennis' resignation. The Patrick vs. Samuel game may have been the best game in this section. Patrick was a pawn up in a rooks/knight/pawns vs rooks/bishop/pawns endgame. He managed to get one passed pawn on the queenside then sacrificed his knight to exposed a discovery attack on the enemy bishop by his rook that eventually led to a second passed pawn. This proved too much for Samuel to defend against and he resigned a short time later. All three of the top seeds won their last round games so Patrick took first place with a perfect score of five points. Samuel Randels, Sidharth Nanda, Dennis Dergunov, and Blake Zoller each finished with four.

Team Results

The Open section was considerably weak in the team competition. There were a total of 16 teams but only one had four or more members. That was Randolph with five members. 12 of the teams had only one member! Having the most members proved to be an advantage for team Randolph (Michael Akenhead, Harrison Cash, Joseph Clark, and Patrick Wingo) and they took first place with six points. Miles Melvin was the only player representing Whitesburg but his five point performance earned it second place. Holy Spirit (Nicholas Gervais and Phillip Jedlovec) took third place with four points.

The Elementary section was the most hotly contested in the team competition. Weatherly Heights (Victor Cheng, Alex Chen, Christy Hsu, Sherwin Chiu, and Bobby Copeland) entered only six players and took first place with an impressive score of 15 points. Randolph (Sanket Shah, Trey Manning, Steven Hwang, Matthew Akenhead, and Kevin James Byrne) took second with 14.5 points. As is usually the case for the host school Hampton Cove brought the most players. They had 20 in this section and their team (Zak Zoller, Christopher North, Edward Honicker, Andrew Harbaugh, Will Pylant, and Michael Htwe) finished in third place with 13.5 points. I also have to mention the Horizon team (Lee Richert, Kalyaan Sola, and Trip Richert) that had an impressive fourth place finish with 9.5 points.