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 |