2003 Madison County Scholastic Team Championship

Introduction

This was a five round Swiss Team Tournament. Each team was composed of four students from the same school. Each round matched teams against each other where first boards played each other, second boards played each other, etc. The team that won the most points in their match got a full point for the round. The loser got zero. If they tied 2-2, they each got half a point. Although there were awards for each of three sections: Open (High School and Middle School), Elementary (4-6) and Primary (K-3), the team pairings were section blind, meaning teams in different sections could be paired together. The pairings were also school blind. There were some teams from the same school that had to play each other.

Play

As is usually the case in scholastic tournaments, once a round started it wasn't long before the first games were over. Three or four minutes tops. The time control was game in 30 minutes but this is almost meaningless in these tournaments. I think kids are programmed to move every five to ten seconds. At about 20 minutes into one round a boy raised his hand and told me he wanted a clock put on his game because his opponent was moving too slow. The game was entering the endgame and it looked like each side already made about 40 moves. I told them to play on without a clock. After 30 minutes into a round there usually was two to four games still going on. That's when Bert and I would put clocks on the games. No one ever ran out of time in this tournament.

The players' conduct after their games ended was even more impressive than their playing ability. I saw no weapons drawn, no tantrums thrown, not even a tear shed. They politely shook each other's hands, set the pieces back up for the next round, then went off to register their results. If there were parents in the room it is doubtful that it would have gone this smoothly. I think it was a wise decision not to allow parents in the playing room while games were being played.

Results

The competition was close. No team ended up with a perfect record. Lower ranking teams outperformed many of the higher ranking teams. After all was said and done Randolph Middle and Randolph A were tied for first place overall with four out of a possible five points. Randolph Middle won on tiebreaks (number of individual wins, strength of opponents, etc). In the individual sections, Randolph Middle won first place in the Open Section and Huntsville Middle took second due to tiebreaks over Discovery Middle. Randolph A won first place in the Elementary Section and Jones Valley Elementary took second due to tiebreaks over Horizon Elementary. Jones Valley Primary won the Primary Section with an impressive score of three out of five points and Hampton Cove Primary took second.

This was a team tournament but there were some individual efforts that deserve notice. Team ASFL did not do particularly well in this tournament but their first board player, Alex Weiner, was undefeated with five wins. The player that I have the most sympathy for is Dennis Dergunov. He was a second grader playing first board on the Horizon Primary team and won all three of his games against Elementary players before every one of his teammates abandoned him due to a conflict in schedule with other events. He was required to leave the tournament due to lack of a team. Robert Tremko of Discovery Middle, Bowen Cochran of Jones Valley Elementary, Grant Alexander of Randolph Middle and Wills Borocato of Randolph A also were all undefeated with five wins and no losses.

Thanks