Rockefeller, Barber, Denker and Senior Winners!!!!

Robert Reynolds was the first Iowan to qualify for his National Tournament. Robert defeated Tim McEntee and Tom Gaul in a three way round robin. Both Robert and Tim are former state champions. It will be great to see Robert in St. Louis in August.

Next was in the Denker qualifier as Micheal Takahashi went undefeated 3.5 of 4. I havn't seen Micheal this happy since Lincoln Elementary defeated Weber Elementary in the Iowa Elementary Individual Team Championship!

Next was the Barber, with a stunning upset Aiden Krueger swept the floor and went 4 of 4 to secure his ticket to St. Louis.

Last but not least was the new tournament on the Block the Rockefeller Tournament of Champions for students K-5. Day one ended with a two way tie between Austin Ji and Anjaneya Rao. We scheduled a playoff for the next day as in the past we have had many ties. The players and families agreed to move to the Coralville Library on Sunday. When the Library opened Austin and Anjaneya squared off with Austin Drawing black for round 1. It was a tight contest with Anjaneya pushing a pawn for glory. Austin stymied the effort and started pushing his own b pawn back at Anjaneya, flustered ran out of time. After regrouping, Anjaneya came back strong and quickly defeated Austin in 15 minutes taking advantage of an opening blunder. The second round of playoffs were g15 d2 Anjaneya won both games and we had a winner.

I was exhausted, after so much chess excitement I went home watched the Superbowl and stacked chess mugs getting ready for next weekends Carl Dunn Memorial Port of Burlington VI tournament.