2006 Rookie Rally

Report

The Primary section had 44 players representing 11 schools. First prize for individual performance went to Stephen Adams from Hope Christian, who scored a perfect 5.0. Daniel Daugherty, in 2nd place, missed by only a half-point due to a requested bye. The 3rd through 7th place finishers each scored 4 points, and had to be ranked by tie breaks: Charles Li, Scott Griffin, Mohammad Alim, Elora Holland, and Bijan Jamshidi. Top team honors went to Hampton Cove Elementary, who amassed 14 points out of 20 possible based on the strong performances of Daniel Daugherty, Ben Allen, Mauhan Taheri, Drew Ramsey, Tim Treiber, Conner Bell, and Preston Thorniley. Blossomwood's team finished second, with 11.5 points, and the Weatherly team, with only three players, finished 3rd.

There were 68 Elementary players from 14 schools. The Swiss pairing system was unable to produce a clear winner with so many players, and wouldn't you know it, both Ruth Terry (who came up from Birmingham) and Kayvon Deldar scored 5 points apiece. They were never paired against each other, and the two top places had to be decided on tie breaks alone. Kayvon just nosed out Ruth, based on the fourth (& final) tie-breaking criterion. That's about as close as you can get! 3rd through 11th places were taken by players scoring 4 points. In tie-breaking order these were Dennis Dergunov, Jason Zhou, Maliha Lubna, Josh Clement, John Weber, Joseph Hastings, Austin Lock, Tony Zeng, and Mitchell Corder.

Both Horizon Elementary and Jones Valley Elementary teams scored a strong 15 points, but Horizon edged out Jones Valley on the first tie-breaking criterion. Horizon also fielded a much larger team, ten players, as opposed to Jones Valley's four. This meant that they had a greater chance of achieving high team scores in each round, so coaches take note: larger teams take home more & better trophies! The strength of the Jones Valley team is all the more striking when you consider that they finished a half point ahead of the 13-player Hampton Cove contingent (3rd place) and three full points ahead of the 15-player Blossomwood home team (4th place).

As usual, the number of high school players (three, from Huntsville High and Bob Jones) was insufficient for a separate section, and they were combined with the 19 junior high entrants (from three schools) to form an Open section for pairing purposes; trophies were still awarded separately to the two groups. Leading the junior high pack with a perfect 5.0 was Alex Weiner, last year's state elementary champion. His performance was no surprise given the large rating advantage he enjoyed over his competitors (there was a 71% chance of this outcome). Second place went to Lee Richert with 4 points and third to Matthew Stewart, who scored 3.5. Madison County's dominant junior high team from Discovery Middle School was on form, with its 15 players taking the top team trophy. The Academy for Science and Foreign Language (ASFL) team of Alex Weiner and Edwin Arriaga garnered 7 points to finish in 2nd place, ahead of the Huntsville Middle team of Dale Stone.

Among the high-schoolers, Karthik Sola finished first with 4 points, followed by the sisters Sabiha Runa (2nd place) and Nasiha Muna (3rd), each with 3.0. The sisters comprised two-thirds of the 1st-place Huntsville High team, who along with Jordan Jefferson (counted as a junior high student) scored 7.5 points to edge out the one-man Bob Jones team of Karthik Sola (4.0).

The Total Trophy Weight Award was probably a 3-way tie between Discovery's Jr High team, Horizon's Elementary team, and the Jones Valley Elementary team.

Individual Results

Karthik Sola

Open Section Trophy Winners Place Name Rating Score 1 Sola, Karthik 1152 4.0 2 Runa, Sabiha 1185 3.0 3 Muna, Nasiha 948 3.0

Jr. High Section Trophy Winners Place Name Rating Score 1 Weiner, Alex 1462 5.0 2 Richert, Lee 1163 4.0 3 Stewart, Matthew 742 3.5 4 Cleveland, Micah 852 3.0

Alex Weiner

Ruth Terry & Kayvon Deldar

Elementary Section Trophy Winners Place Name Rating Score 1 Deldar, Kayvon 1084 5.0 2 Terry, Ruth 1140 5.0 3 Zhou, Jason 1043 4.0 4 Lubna, Maliha 1041 4.0 5 Clement, Joshua 950 4.0 6 Weber, John 905 4.0 7 Hastings, Joseph 860 4.0 8 Zeng, Tony 812 4.0 9 Dergunov, Dennis 1102 4.0 10 Lock, Austin 820 4.0

Primary Section Trophy Winners Place Name Rating Score 1 Adams, Stephen nnnn 5.0 2 Daugherty, Daniel 676 4.5 3 Li, Charles 787 4.0 4 Griffin, Scott 435 4.0 5 Alim, Mohammad 942 4.0 6 Holland, Elora 857 4.0 7 Jamshidi, Bijan 410 4.0 8 Allen, Ben nnnn 3.5 9 Medawar, Nicholas nnnn 3.5 10 Smith, Tyler nnnn 3.0

Stephen Adams

Team Results

Credits