Maryland Sweet 16

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Jeffrey Chang wins the 2011 Maryland Sweet 16 tournament at UMBC and with that also wins a 4-year chess scholarship to UMBC. He finished with a win over Ronald Best Jr (runnerup) to finish with a perfect score. Jeffrey is a 7th grader from Takoma Park Middle School in Montgomery County.

Further details to follow. Congratulations!

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The 2011 Maryland Sweet 16 tournament is underway this weekend at UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), and the first two rounds are completed.

The current standings are

2.0: Charles Yang, Ramanuja Sreenivasan, Jeffrey Chang, Ronald Best Jr

1.0: Jake Koenig, Zachary Jablow, Jonathan Chen, Saketh Papaiahgari, Madeline Kim, Jerry Wu, Dobrynya Konoplev, Jason Zou

0.0: Bendeguz Offertaler, Devon Campbell, Alex Li, Jordan Best

The roster for the 2011 Sweet 16 are below. Jake Koenig substituted for David Snyder.

Best, Jordan (3rd grade - Baltimore City0

Best Jr, Ronald (7 - Baltimore City)

Campbell, Devon (8 - Baltimore City)

Chang, Jeffrey (7 - Montgomery County)

Chen, Jonathan (7? - Montgomery County)

Jablow, Zachary (6 - Baltimore County)

Kim, Madeline (8 - Baltimore City)

Koenig, Jake (11 - Montgomery County)

Konoplev, Dobrynya (10 - Howard County)

Li, Alex (7 - Montgomery County)

Offertaler, Bendeguz (8 - Montgomery County)

Papaiahgari, Saketh (9 - Baltimore County)

Sreenivasan, Ramanuja (7 - Montgomery County)

Wu, Jerry (6 - Montgomery County)

Yang, Charles (10 - Montgomery County)

Zou, Jason (7 - Howard County)

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The annual Maryland Sweet 16 chess tournament has begun today at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) with the first two rounds out of four. Apparently this tournament started in 1991. Currently, this tournament is held as a separate section of the Alvin S Mintzes UMBC Open.

The scores after the first two rounds:

2.0 - Charles Yang, Ramanuja Sreenivasan, Jeffrey Chang, Ronald Best Jr

1.0 - Jake Koenig, Zachary Jablow, Janathan Chen, Saketh Papaiahgari, Madeline Kim, Jerry Wu, Dobrynya Konoplev, Jason Zou

0.0 - Bendeguz Offertaler, Devon Campbell, Alex Li, Jordan Best

The field of 16 was complete after last Saturday's MCA scholastic tournament at Liberty Christian with Jake Koenig filling in for David Snyder.

The players this year are

Jordan Best (3rd grade - Baltimore City)

Ronald Best, Jr (7th grade - Baltimore City)

Devon Campbell (8th greade - Baltimore City)

Jeffrey Chang (7th grade - Montgomery County)

Jonathan Chen ( grade - Montgomery County)

Zachary Jablow (6th grade - Baltimore County)

Jake Koenig (11th grade - Montgomery County)

Madeline Kim (8th grade - Baltimore City)

Alex Li (7th grade - Montgomery County)

Dobrynaya Konoplev (10th grade - Howard County)

Bendeguz Offertaler (8th grade - Montgomery County)

Saketh Papaiahgari (9th grade - Baltimore County)

Ramanuja Sreenivasan (7th grade - Montgomery County)

Jerry Wu (grade - County)

Charles Yang (10th grade - Montgomery County)

Jason Zou (7th grade - Howard County)

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The 2010-2011 MCA Scholastic season is underway, and one of the featured competitions is the Rally section qualification to the 2011 Sweet 16, where 16 of the top Maryland scholastic players compete at the UMBC Open in their own section where the winner receives a UMBC Chess scholarship.

The 2011 Maryland Sweet 16 will be held Feb 26-27 at UMBC. All participants in the 2011 Sweet 16 are required to play all 4 rounds over the weekend.

The final standings after 5 events are at the end of this article (click on Read more).

After the final event this evening (MCA Liberty Christian Scholastic), here is the tentative list of the 2011 Maryland Sweet 16 qualifiers [Tanner McNamara and Alex Nguyen have already declined or are not able to participate]:

Top 6 (USCF rating): Charles Yang, Ramanuja Sreenivasan, Jeffrey Chang, Dobrinya Konoplev, Jonathan Chen, Ronald Best

Next 10 (Rally Points): Saketh Papaihgari, Madeline Kim, Bendeguz Offertaler, Jason Zou, Jerry Wu, Jordan Best, Alex Li, Zachary Jablow, Devon Campbell, David Snyder

Alternates (next 3): Jake Koenig, Cyrus Cordero, Shane Mazuk


There were a total of 5 scheduled MCA Scholastic tournaments that served as qualifiers for the Sweet 16. All five of these have already been held (Oct 2 at Windy ill MS (Calvert County); Nov 13 at NorthEast HS (Cecil County); Dec 18 at Boonsboro MS (Washington County); Feb 12 at Chestertown MS - now Kent County MS (Kent County)); Feb 19 at Liberty Christian (Baltimore County). One had to be cancelled (Mary of Nazareth (Montgomery County)).


By the decision of the Scholastic Directors: because the Mary of Nazareth event had to be cancelled for this chess season, players in the Rally section who had preregistered for that tournament will automatically qualify for Top 6 by rating. However, they will receive no Rally points for the event. Jonathan Chen qualified for the Top 6 of the Sweet 16 in this fashion.


Qualifying rules for the 2011 Sweet 16: Essentially unchanged from 2009 and 2010.

1. All qualifiers have to had played in at least one MCA Rally tournament in Fall 2010-Winter 2010/2011. The exception for this season are those Rally players that had preregistered for the MCA Mary of Nazareth Scholastic tournamnet (Dec 4) will be eligible to qualify for the Top 6 by rating.

2. Top 6 qualifiers by USCF rating (March 2011 rating supplement) plus the next 10 highest Rally point players will comprise the 16 qualifiers. Alternates will be chosen by next highest Rally point totals. March 2011 rating supplement will be used for Ratings qualifier, as this reflects the games played through Fri Feb 4, 2011.

3. All Sweet 16 players are required to play all 4 rounds during Feb 26-27, 2011, unless there is a medical emergency or other extenuating circumstance. Failure to do so will result in barring in participating in future Sweet 16 tournaments. Failure to show affects place as well as tiebreaks for the other players. Therefore, it is much preferable to decline participating if a commitment to all 4 rounds cannot be made, so the MCA can select and notify an alternate in time.

4. The Sweet 16 tournament is a separate section of the UMBC Open with the same time controls and starting times for each round. The tournament is 4 rounds taking place during Rounds 1, 2, 4, and 5. [Round 3 - Sat evening is skipped for this section].

5. Formula for each Rally tournament - each player receives a number of Rally points = (# players) / place in tourney. If there are ties, then all players with same score receive the average of the corresponding places. Players from out of state count for determining Rally points, but do not count in the Rally Point standings.

6. Special for this year (Mary of Nazareth preregistrants): Tanner McNamara (2007) and Jonathan Chen (1762) tentatively (based on March 2011 USCF ratings) have made the qualifier list based on Top 6 by rating. Jerry Wu (1605) will serve as 1st alternate based on rating. [Note: Tanner McNamara has declined to participate this year and Jerry Wu has qualified by Rally Points].

Read more: 2011 MD Sweet 16 Update - 19 Feb 2011 (after MCA Liberty Christian)