Highlighting Some Marshall Regulars at K-12 Nationals

One of the most important scholastic tournaments of the year is the K-12 Nationals. This year, it took place in Orlando, Florida, with Disney’s Coronado Springs as the venue. What I found to be notable about the tournament was that many of the participants and winners (both team and individual) tended to be from New York.

Of course, with so many participants from New York, there were plenty of Marshall regulars who played at the big event. From the winners, there were:

Liam Henry Putnam: 4th Grade Champion

Liam has been quickly rising up in the chess world. He won his category at Supernationals this past year, which is the biggest scholastic tournament that happens every 4 years. This mighty kid is one of the top 10 players age 9. His mother also brought air fresheners to the Marshall, which was an amazing improvement to our chess scene!

Eddy Tian: 5th Grade Champion

Eddy actually lives in New Jersey, but he often plays in tournaments at the Marshall. He played in his first World Youth earlier this year and recently made National Master. 2017 has been one of his best chess years for sure!

Max Lu: 6th Grade Champion

Maximillian Lu used to hold the record for the youngest NM in US History, but it was broken by FM Christopher Yoo and recently, CM Liran Zhou. He has participated in many tournaments at the Marshall.

Justin Chen: 9th Grade Champion

Justin enabled his high school, Stuyvesant, to win the team championship, besides winning the individual category. He said to IM Greg Shahade, “This is my first National Championship. In the past when I start 5-0 I always lose the 6th game, so it was my nightmare that it would happen again. But it didn’t.”

Other players had strong, trophy winning performances, but did not win their sections.

3rd Grade:

- Brewington Hardaway, pictured in the main photo for the article, tied for 2nd and placed 4th on tiebreaks.

- Royal Buchanon tied for 3rd and placed 10th on tiebreaks.

- Iris Mou tied for 3rd and placed 15th on tiebreaks
4th Grade:

- Jed Sloan tied for 3rd and placed 11th on tiebreaks

5th Grade:

- Adi Murgescu tied for 2nd and placed 2nd on tiebreaks

- Nico Chasin tied for 2nd and placed 3rd on tiebreaks

- Jack Levine tied for 3rd and placed 9th on tiebreaks

- Ellen Wang tied for 3rd and placed 10th on tiebreaks

Nico Chasin: not only is he a great player, but he also has an amazing fashion sense!

6th Grade:

- Nate Shuman tied for 2nd and placed 3rd on tiebreaks

- Gus Huston tied for 3rd and placed 7th on tiebreaks

- Nura Baala tied for 3rd and placed 9th on tiebreaks

Nura Baala

7th Grade:

- Sumit Dhar tied for 3rd and placed 7th on tiebreaks

- Eugene Yoo tied for 3rd and placed 9th on tiebreaks

8th:

- Daniel Levkov tied for 3rd and placed 10th on tiebreaks

10th:

- Sophie Morris-Suzuki tied for 5th and placed 15th on tiebreaks

Sophie Morris-Suzuki with special guest WGM Sabina Foiser, the US Women's Champion

 
11th:

- Matthew Miyasaka tied for 2nd and placed 4th on tiebreaks

Congratulations to everyone who completed the tournament, regardless of if you won a trophy or not. Many regulars played at the national competition but were not listed here. Also, many players who placed high have played at the Marshall, especially if they live in New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey, but are not regulars. We hope to see our regular scholastic players continuing to succeed and just have fun playing chess!

Right: Ethan Li, who sometimes plays at the Marshall, but not regularly