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Championship

Alice Deal, Longfellow, and DCI Take Top Placings in Potomac Youth Chess League

The Potomac Youth Chess League, the competition we run for all interested middle schools in the greater Washington DC area, finished its latest season of competition last month.  Initially run from 1997 to 2010 as an in-person competition, the PYCL was brought back in 2023 with the games being played online on the lichess.org platform on Saturday afternoons.  We continue to add new participants with 18 schools registering to play this year.

This year saw an extremely close contest for the championship.  After the last of the six rounds finished, three schools – Alice Deal and DCI of Washington, D.C. and Longfellow Middle School of McLean, VA – all finished with five match points.  The order of the podium places came down to the board points tiebreaker, with Deal’s team (pictured in the first image from the top) earning the title by a razor-thin half-point margin over Longfellow.  DCI’s team, pictured second from top, was close behind in third.

All three schools were awarded commemorative plaques in honor of their impressive seasons.  We congratulate the winners and extend our thanks to the faculty members, parents, and other adults who helped coordinate their school teams for the matches each Saturday of play.  

The 2026-2027 season of the PYCL is currently slated to start in late autumn of the next school year.  If your middle school has a chess team that is interested in participating, you can email us at ms-league@chessctr.org for more information.

U.S. Chess Center Students Compete at World Amateur Team Championship

Two teams of our students had a wonderful time at the World Amateur Team Championships over Presidents Day weekend in Parsippany, New Jersey. Unlike events like the scholastic championships, this event is a fixed team tournament, meaning that the four players on one team sit together to play the four players of the opposing team.

Cooper Middle School, consisting of players who had been in our Spring Hill Elementary club and half of them now in the Theophilus Thompson Club on Sundays, won the award for the top middle school in the competition. Spring Hill Elementary tied for first place among elementary schools but lost out on tie-breaks for the championship plaque this year. (Spring Hill took clear first place last year.)

Every student returned talking about making plans to return to event next year. Leo, of Spring Hill, notched his first score against a National Master, a source of great pride. Emily, a Spring Hill fourth grader, gushed about how much fun it was to beat adults.

Bryan, from Cooper, liked being seated with his teammates, so that he could watch his friends play without having to look for them in a huge tournament hall. With about 1,500 players in the championships, the event could have been overwhelming for the young players, but because they were seated with their teams, everyone was comfortable throughout.  The players also enjoyed the unique aspects of this event, such as playing teams that were all female, or all senior citizens, or other teams of students from other parts of the country.  Some teams came in costume, and many had interesting names.

 

The fixed team format provides additional benefits. Nobody feels bad at the end of a game. When a player wins and the team wins, the player is happy. When a player loses but the team wins, the player is happy. When a player wins but the team loses, the player is happy. When a player loses and the team loses, the player knows that the whole team is the same boat, and the player is happy. Fixed team events are great for promoting the best of chess, and we are glad that our teams participated.

Happy New Year From the U.S. Chess Center! Upcoming Major Competitions in 2022

We hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season and getting to spend time with loved ones.  Remember, whether you’re visiting in person or catching up through a video screen, a game of chess is a great way to connect.

Since chess players plan ahead, we’re posting some of the major competition dates for 2022 right here for folks who wish to mark their calendars.

The Virginia Scholastic Chess Championship is scheduled for the weekend of March 26-27 in Fredericksburg, VA.  State championship tournaments are exciting for children no matter their playing strength, and we hope many of our Virginia-based students will decide to attend this year’s event.  The Virginia Chess Federation has more information and online registration here.

Further ahead are the national championships.  The National High School Championship for 2022, open to all students in grades K-12, is happening in Memphis the weekend of April 8-10 at the Renasant Convention Center.  Online registration is available here.

 Three weeks later, from April 29-May 1, is the National Middle School Championship for grades K-8.  The venue is the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas (Dallas-Fort Worth area).  An entry form and additional details can be found here. 

Two weeks after that, from May 13-15, is the National Elementary School Championship for grades K-6, slated for Columbus at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.  Online registration for the elementary school Nationals is not available yet, but we believe it will be soon.  You can visit the USCF’s calendar of national events for more information, and the Chess Center will also be updating our tournament calendar as more details become open.

The Nationals - students from around the country united by a shared passion for chess.

Regardless of how many games they win, participating in these state and national championship competitions tends to be an experience that children never forget.  If you’re interested in forming a school group to travel to a tournament and you’d like to connect with other families who want the same, we encourage you to speak with your chess club instructor.

We wish you all a safe, healthy and happy New Year, and we look forward to seeing you in 2022!