Fifty scholastic players from North Alabama met at the Bevill Conference Center and Hotel at the UAH campus on Saturday, July 26th, to do battle in a five round chess tournament. The fact that only three of the players were new to tournament play made this an unusually strong competition.

Michael Palmer was awarded the first place trophy in the High School section for winning four games and allowing only one draw. The second place trophy was won by Ethan Balch who finished with 3 1/2 points and third place went to Isaiah Matroni finishing with 3 points. Other players in this section were: Nick Davis, Tori Maddox, Chris Tremko, and Peter Tremko.

The Middle School section was won by Huw Smith with a score of 4 1/2. Second in this section was Robert Tremko with 4 points and third was earned by Josiah Mullins who had 3 points but finished ahead of Rick Davidson due to tiebreaks. Others in this section were: Michael Akenhead, Trevor Gant, Philip Jedlovic, Jordan Jefferson, Karthik Sola, and Jacob Weatherly.

The Elementary section was the largest of the four with 20 players. First place was won by the highest rated player, Victor Cheng who scored 4 1/2 points. Second and third place were hotly contested by four students each having 3 1/2 points. Second was awarded to Alex Chen and third to Dave Praharaj over Matthew Akenhead and Kalyaan Sola because of tiebreaks.The rest of the field consisted of: Teja Alapati, Jacob Brooks, Alex Campbell, Sherwin Chiu, Bobby Copeland, Trey Manning, Kyle Moore, Nolan Moore, Graham Porter, Lee Richert, Trip Richert, Sanket Shaw, Alex Weiner, Patrick Wingo, and Zak Zoller.

The Primary secton was very close with Dennis Dergunov taking first on tiebreak over Sidharth Nanda. Both had 4 1/2 points. Third place, again due to tiebreak, was awarded to Blake Zoller with 3 points over Logan Johnson and Sivam Nanda . Others in this section were: Sara Campbell, Rob Chappell, Kayvon Deldar, Jacob Edmondson, Haile Gill, Dylan Jedlovec, Adrian Majerle, and Lydia Nance.

This tournament was made possible through the dedication of many people. Many thanks to: Jerry Wheeler, President of the Huntsville Chess Club, Pam Zoller for serving as Assistant Tournament Director, Dave Campbell for spending all day in front of a computer on his day off, Don Maddox, Faculty sponsor of the UAH Chess Club and President of ChessbaseUSA/Chess Digest for providing a great playing site, and the Parents from Hampton Cove who made certain the students were fed.