2007 Rookie Rally

Report

The primary (K-3) section comprised 46 players, nearly half of whom were newcomers to rated competition. The top finishers were 2nd-seeded Alexander Qin, with a perfect 5.0, followed by five players with 4.0 points. In tie-break order these were top seed Elora Holland, Vikhram Balagee, Armon Mobasher, Preston Thornily, and Alexander Lay. Special mention should be made of unrated Connor Smith, who led the 3.5-point group to finish 7th in his very first tournament, ahead of Nicholas Medawar and Wyatt Pope. The 10th place trophy was captured by Andy Kong on tie breaks, ahead of nine others who also scored 3 points.

The top primary team was the Blossomwood's own K-3 home team, with 13.5 points, followed by Birmingham's BCC, which garnered 2nd place on tie-breaks over Hampton Cove, both schools ending with 13 points each. The 4th place trophy went to the Horizon Elementary (Madison) squad, who scored 12.5.

The elementary (K-6) section was by far the largest with 66 players, 11 making their tournament debut. Pride of place was hotly contested here, with the top ten players finishing within a half-point spread. The top three earned 4.5 points each: State Grades 4-5 Champion Kayvon Deldar, State K-3 Champion Stephen Adams, and in a surprise, 13th-seeded Jonathan Dummer. Places 4-10 were taken by six players who each scored 4 points: 28th-seeded (!) Forest Dewberry, Charles Li, John Weber, Scott Bozeman, Phillip Wang, Maliha Lubna, and her brother Einaam Alim.

Hampton Cove Elementary took the top team trophy in this section, with 15 points. Jones Valley, Weatherly, and Blossomwood each scored 13.5 to take 2nd through 4th place trophies.

An unusually good turnout in the Open (K-12) and Jr High (K-9) sections allowed them to be paired separately (usually they have to be combined), with the five top section players competing round-robin. The best individual performance by a Jr High player was achieved by Michael Cooper from Madison's Liberty Middle School, with a 5-0 sweep, followed by Pranayraj Kondapally and Thomas Hadden (4 points each), both from Madison's Discovery Middle School. The 4th place trophy was awarded to Patrick Bryant who won on tie breaks over Adib Alam who also scored 3 points.

Only two Jr High teams were represented, Liberty and Discovery. Each scored 12.5 points, but Liberty took the top trophy on tie-breaks.

Tushar Ramesh and Jacob Bryan (both from Discovery) finished 1-2 in the Open section on tie-breaks, each scoring 4 points. The third place trophy was captured by Sabiha Runa (3 points), who attends Huntsville High School. Discovery and Huntsville High were awarded the two Open team trophies, with respective scores of 8 and 5 points.

	Individual Results

	Team Results

Teams are made up of players from the same school and in the same section. Only the top four individual scores count towards the team score. In the tables below, the number after the team name is the total number of players on that team. The first number after a player's name is the individual score he achieved. The second number is his USCF rating.

Credits