The 2011-2012 MCA Maryland Sweet 16 qualification season is now complete, after the 6th event at Liberty Christian school yesterday.  The Maryland Sweet 16 consists of 16 of the top Maryland scholastic players, who compete at their own section of the UMBC Open. The winner receives a UMBC Chess scholarship. The 2012 Maryland Sweet 16 will be held Feb 25-26 at UMBC.

Here is the list of the 2012 Maryland Sweet 16 qualifiers:

Top 6 (USCF rating): Charles Yang, Ramanuja Sreenivasan, Dobrynya Konoplev, Bendeguz Offertaler, Andrew Zheng, Saketh Papaiahgari

Next 10 (Rally Points): Ronald Best Jr, Jerry Wu, Madeline Kim, Pieter Heesters, Alex Li, Jordan Best, Jason Zou, David Snyder, Sahil Singha, Aditya Balasubramanian

Top alternate: Zachary Jablow

There were a total of 6 scheduled MCA Scholastic tournaments that served as qualifiers for the Sweet 16. Five of these have already been held: Oct 15 at Windy Hill MS (Calvert County); Nov 12 at Perryville MS (Cecil County); Dec 10 at Owings Mills HS (Baltimore County); Dec 17 at Boonsboro MS (Washington County); Jan 28 at Kent County MS (Kent County); and Feb 18 at Liberty Christian School (Baltimore County).

Qualifying rules for the 2012 Sweet 16:  See the Sweet 16 section on this website.  Significant change for 2012: qualifiers must have played all 3 rounds of at least one Rally tournament in the 2011-2012 season.

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.

One new change to the Rally section was the introduction of increment rather than delay - time controls were G/45 inc/30 vs G/60 delay/5 in the past. Increment The 2012 Sweet 16 tournament will introduce a G/90 inc/30 time control (identical to that used in the Denker and Barber National tournaments).

Top 6 by USCF rating (per March 2012 USCF ratings):

Place Name USCF Rating (03/12)
1 Yang, Charles 2120
2 Sreenivasan, Ramanuja 2001
3 Konoplev, Dobrynya 1939
4 Offertaler, Bendeguz 1923
5 Zheng, Andrew 1862
6 Papaiahgari, Saketh 1847
     
7 Wu,Jerry 1786
8 Best Jr, Ronald 1765
9 Sinha, Sahil 1765
10 Li, Alex 1655

 

2012 Final Rally Standings after MCA Liberty Christian (2/18/2012):

 

Place Name USCF Rating (03/12) Total Rally Points Number of Tournaments
1 Best Jr, Ronald 1765 29.146 4
2 Wu,Jerry 1786 16.000 1
3 Kim, Madeline 1532 15.400 4
4 Heesters, Pieter 1435 13.684 5
5 Sreenivasan, Ramanuja 2001 13.425 2
6 Yang, Charles 2120 12.189 2
7 Papaiahgari, Saketh 1847 11.489 2
8 Li, Alex 1655 11.186 2
9 Offertaler, Bendeguz 1923 10.000 1
10 Best, Jordan 1513 7.787 4
11 Zou, Jason 1544 6.633 2
12 Snyder, David 1551 6.363 2
13 Sinha, Sahil 1765 5.750 2
14 Balasubramanian, Aditya 1149 5.005 4
15 Jablow, Zachary 1259 4.557 2
16 Hung, Justin 1208 3.539 3
17 Hu, Sophia 1338 3.364 2
18 Mills, Trevor 1302 2.975 2
19 Sreenivasan, Nila 1178 2.922 2
20 Zheng, Andrew 1862 2.833 1
21 Papaiahgari, Suraj 1368 2.833 1
22 Hsu, Alex 1160 2.777 2
23 Jung, Nicholas 1182 1.593 1
24 Konoplev, Dobrynya 1939 1.329 1
25 Mrozek, Tad 1358 1.329 1
26 Byatnal, Kushal 1303 1.290 1
27 Du, Jeffrey 1193 1.290 1
28 Neff, David 1183 1.189 1
29 Griffin, Benjamin 1006 1.056 1
30 Hu, Evan 1237 1.028 1
31 Grigore, Audrey 1111 1.000 1
32 Kim, Charlotte 1150 1.000 1