Pioneer School Chess Club ... First Place Runaway
Ahead of Thirteen Other Schools

by James Stripes
The Rook Madness youth tournament at Jewett House in Spokane attracted 43 elementary competitors from fourteen schools. Once again, Pioneer School ran away with the team prize as the school's top four scored 18 points! In addition to the three elementary sections, two middle school students played a three game match with a longer time control. Garrett Casey prevailed over Logan Faulkner 2.5 - 0.5 in their match.

Varun Ambalavanan prevailed over all challengers in the K-6 section with a perfect 5.0. Second place went to Mathew Wasson, who lost to Varun in the last round and finished with 4.0/ Also finishing with 4.0 and taking home trophies for best in grade 4 and grade 5 were Aniketh Parlapalli and Kolby Uhlenkott. Mark Sorensen was the top sixth grader.

Another perfect score led Olivia Hilton to the top of the K-3 section. She was followed by Connor Gosselin-Harris (4.0) in second place and Ananya Parlapalli (3.5), the top third grader. First place in second grade was Ben Barrett with 3.0.

In K-1, Adrian Rooney took first with 4.5. Florence Cooper finished in second with 3.5. Also with 3.5 was the top kindergarten player, Jaxon Korb. First place in first grade went to Noah Lueck with 3.0. Amelie Hilton's 546 point upset was the largest of the tournament and she went home with a trophy for that accomplishment.

In the parent's competition, Anand Wadikar finished with another perfect 3.0. However the prize goes to the top parent-child team. Jeff Hilton (2.0) and his daughter, Olivia (5.0), won that competition over the Gosselin-Harris family (6.0) and the Wadikar team (5.0).