2015 Barber Winner: Advait Patel Makes It Back To Back
No player in the history of the GM Arnold Denker Tournament of High School Champions, the Dewain Barber Tournament of K-8 Champions or the National Girls Tournament of Champions has even gone back to back until this year. Congratulations to NM Advit Patel (OK) who scored 5.5/6 in a field of nine National Masters which is also a record for this event.
Advait had a draw in the last round against NM Andrew Zheng (MD) and that cleared the way for the victory and title, Undisputed Barber Champion of Champions. He also was the winner of the $500 for the Chess Scholarship for under age 13.
There was a tie, 5/6 for Second Place with Expert Ryan Sowa (RI) coming out on top with the higher tie-break over Expert Evan Meyer (MA). Likewise, the Fourth Place resulted in a tie, 4.5/6 between NM Jacob Furfine (IL) and NM Andrew Zheng (MD). Further details can be found here: http://uschess.org/results/2015/usopen/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=barber
Wisconsin and Oklahoma Top State Team Competitors
Congratulations to the 2015 Co-Champions, Wisconsin (team avg-2074) and Oklahoma (team avg-2134) for charging forward with a 13.5/18 score which was a full point above the third place team, Washington State (team avg-2014). In the end Wisconsin (Alexander Velikanov, Kevin Li and Anupama Rajendra) had the best tiebreaks. Oklahoma (Joshua Alexander, Advait Patel and Veronika Zilajeva) were in the hunt, but fell short. Although Washington State (Noah Dennis Fields, Neo Edward Olin and Sangeeta Dhingra) fell a point behind they ended up clear third. Fourth place was also a clear result with Massachusetts (Mika Andy Brattain, Evan Meyer and Ria Dawar) achieving 12.0/18 over the group that had a five-way tie (Arizona, Southern California, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey) for fifth place.
State Team winners in the Under Sections were Massachusetts (Under 2100), Maryland (Under 1900) and Tennessee (Under 1700). Complete results can be found at: www.uschess.org/results/15/usopen/?page=STANDINGS&xsection=dgtcombined