2023 Class Championship Results

The 2023 Class Championship was held at Iowa Valley Community College in Grinnell, Iowa on April 15, 2023. Fifty-seven players competed in five separate classes.

Class A and Class B sections were combined to create one section of fourteen players. The participants played a four round Swiss system tournament with a time control of game in one hour with a five second delay.

Alec Aimidilokwong (1776) of Ankeny, Iowa won the Class A title by scoring 3.5 points in this four-round section. Aimidilokwong needed only a draw in round four to clinch the title. Irene Fei (1868) scored three points to take second place. George Eichhorn (1900) top rated player in this section followed by Ben Darr (1881). Fei had a rough start giving up a draw in round one to Ryan Miller (1663) and a draw in round two to Gerald Hawkins (1627) before defeating Eichhorn in the final round to clinch second in the Class A section.

Miller and Max Cao (1644) each scored three points to tie for the Class B title. Miller is a Kentucky resident, and he graciously gave the Class B trophy to Cao even though he had won the trophy in a tiebreak.

Class C and Class D sections were combined to create one section of fourteen players. The participants played a four round Swiss system tournament with a time control of game in one hour with a five second delay.

Frank Bowers (1513) went undefeated to score four points and claim the Class C title. Ryan Mitchell (1505) scored three to capture second place. Mitchell lost to Bowers in round one. The Class D title was won by Savir Talasila (852) who scored three points and three players tied for second in Class D, Arron Singh (1121), Michael Eikmeier, and Don Grove (1311). Talasila had the biggest upset in this section by defeating Yueze Huang (1246) in round one.

The Class E section had twenty-eight players. The participants played a five round Swiss system tournament with a time control of game in thirty minutes with a five second delay. Trophies were awarded to the top five players overall, additional trophies were awarded to players with the best scores who didn’t finish in the top five in the following categories: The top two places were awarded trophies to players rated under 1000, under 800, under 600, under 400, under 200, and unrated players. Vincent Wong (904) won the Class E title scoring four and half points out of five. There was a four-way tie for second through fifth. On tiebreak, Emma Chen (957) won second place, Caden Knoblock took third place, Sean Gomez won fourth place, and Dyland Foland claimed fifth place.

The remaining trophies were awarded as follows: U1000, 1st, Logan Miller (968), 2nd Max Hing (875); U800, 1st, Kartik Chugh (711), 2nd Jeffrey Bratz (175); U600, 1st Keshava Murthy (426), 2nd Leviathan Freerksen (494), U400, 1st Seiyo Ravishankan (376), 2nd Darya Gurtovaya (249), and Unrated, there was a three-way tie and 1st went to Bradley Doughery, 2nd Drew Roen. Zackary Phillips tied with Bradley and Drew but lost on tiebreak. The under 200 trophies were not awarded as one player rated under 200 didn’t come to the tournament and the other player won the U800 2nd place trophy.