Pioneer School Prevails Again  by James Stripes

The King's Clash Scholastic Tournament held at Cataldo School on Saturday, December 5 featured many untold stories that will linger in the memories of the competitors for a few weeks, years, or in some cases for the rest of their lives.

Pioneer School was one of two schools which kept Saint George's School from taking all of the team trophies in Spokane during the 2014-2015 season, although SGS still captured the majority. With Pioneer's victory on Saturday, their second in three events, PSP showed that they are the team to beat in 2015-2016.

   Plenty of drama ...

Youth tournaments depart slightly from the norm for rated chess competition. Not all young players notate their games, although this practice is required in USCF events. Games also start without clocks. Forty minutes into a one hour round, clocks are placed on the games still in progress with each player allotted ten minutes to complete the game.

Parents are not allowed in the playing hall and so miss much drama. Tournament officials are kept busy enough in an event with 61 players, that they observe a mere fraction of these moments.

In the last game to finish in round three, both players had been notating the game until each were under three minutes remaining. Kyler Doud was ahead a rook and bishop for a pawn and threatened checkmate in one, but Kara Chiang kept harassing his king with checks. Kyler's King walked from one corner to the other to escape checks. Finally, unable to check the king further, Kara defended her vital b7 pawn where Kyler threatened checkmate. The exchange of queen and rook for queen and pawn did not appeal to Kyler, so he opted for another tack. A few moves later, Kara pointed out that the position had been repeated three times and stuck out her hand claiming a draw. Kyler could have pointed out that neither score sheet could prove the repetition, but with less time remaining was happy to split the point.

The tournament consisted of four sections, K-1, K-3, K-5, K-12, plus a parent's event. The only player who opted to play up was second grader Mythreya Dharani. He won the K-12 section with 4.5/5.0, giving up a draw to newcomer Kamden Doud in the fourth round. Kamden placed third in the section and took home the trophy for top sixth grader. Alex Popescu placed second, losing to Mythreya but winning his other four games, including a round five battle with Kamden.

In the K-5 section, three players finished without a loss. Varun Ambalavanan topped the section with 4.5. Kara Chiang (4.0) had two draws and three wins. Toby Kast (4.0) lost to Kara and won his other games. He took the trophy for top fifth grader. Two fourth graders with 3.5 took home trophies for top in grade, Ryan Waters and Mathew Wasson. Ryan's only loss was to Varun. Mathew had to win a soccer game in the morning and only played three rounds, winning every game.

Four players with one loss each topped the largest section, K-3. Connor Gosselin-Harris beat Ben Barrett, but Ben took first on tie-breaks. Ben also beat the player that handed Connor his only loss as well as beating the player who gave Evelyn Arquette (also 4.0) her sole loss. Per Sande was the fourth with 4.0. Based on the standard Solkoff, Cumulative, Opposition Cumulative tie-breaks, first place went to Ben, second to Connor, and Evelyn and Per each took home their respective grade level trophies.

The youngest section was won by the only player with a perfect 5.0, Cyler Jessup. Second place went to Elizabeth Arquette, who lost only to Cyler. Aaron Pooler (3.0) won the first grade trophy.