04.16.22 One hundred twenty-two scholastic chess players from across the state descended on Messalonskee Middle School in Oakland, Maine on Saturday, March 19th to compete for state scholastic chess championship titles in the high school, middle school, and elementary school sections of the 2022 Maine Scholastic Individual Chess Championships.

US Chess crosstable of this event

Thanks to Kate Ervin for contributing to this report.

The Maine Scholastic Individual Chess Championships played on Saturday, March 19, 2022 was a US Chess rated, Maine Scholastic Grand Prix and Maine Grand Prix event. It was a nominating event for the Denker, Barber, and Rockefeller National Tournaments of Champions. In addition, US Chess Junior Grand Prix points were available.

The four-round Swiss-style tournament was contested in three sections: HS (9-12) (G/61+5), MS (6-8) (G/61+5), ES (K-5) (G/30+5). There was also a Non-scholastic Sidekick Quads section.

In the high school section, the tournament's largest, Tommy Owen and Gabe Eaton both put up perfect scores of 4.0 points in four games to share the title of 2022 Maine High School Individual Chess Champion. The leaders were trailed by Evan Smith with 3.5 points and a raft of players notching 3.0 points including: Eli Slaughter, Ben Mock, Tristan Cousineau, Reagan Bossong, Brian Evans, Kevin Lin, Ambrose McCullough, Joshua Lorenzo, and Samuel Coldwell.

Walker Bayless and Jacob Klien tied for the top spot in the Middle School section with the unbeaten and untied score of 4.0 points in as many games. Bayless and Klien share the honor of becoming the 2022 Maine Middle School Individual Chess Champions. The winners finished a full point ahead of the trailing pack with 3.0 points: Charlie Cresswell, Molly Tefft, Miles Kaplan, Christian Zhang, Alexander Miller, Zafir Bashir, Matthew Goodwin, Jack Hildebrandt, and Walter Field.

In the thirty-nine player Elementary Section, Isaac Klien and Victor Clayton blanked their opponents with 4.0 points in four games. Congratulations to these two outstanding players on becoming the 2022 Maine Elementary School Individual Chess Champions. Another hotly contested section, the Elementary section had nine players trailing the leaders with 3.0 points: Derrick Johnson, Christopher Burnette, Maximus Rollins, Henry Shannon, Arkan Das, Eli Marquis, Adrian Nathanson, Lucas Canning, and Erika Snyder.

Wyatt Hendrix topped the Sidekick Quads with 3.0 points in three games.

Thanks to all who made this tournament a great success including the players themselves, parents, coaches, drivers, volunteers, organizers, and directors. A big thank you to Messalonskee Middle School for hosting this event.