Polgar: Tournament awards more than $250,000 in scholarships, prizes
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Story last updated at 3/1/2009 - 1:58 am
The 2009 Susan Polgar National Open Chess Championship for Girls and Boys (K-12) took place Feb. 13-15 in Peoria, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix. More than 200 young players from 15 states competed for more than $250,000 in college scholarships (Texas Tech and Texas A&M Kingsville), and prizes in eight sections.
In the Girls Primary section, Diamond Shakoor of Ohio scored a perfect 7-0 to win the title, a Dell laptop and digital chess clock.
In the Girls Elementary section, Kristen Sarna of Texas and Aiya Cancio of Arizona tied for first with 6 points. They had to play a blitz playoff game (each player only had 5 minutes to complete the entire game) to decide who would win the Dell laptop. Sarna won the coin toss and she chose black, which was unusual since white has a natural advantage in chess. It was a very exciting game but Sarna pulled out at the end to score the win. This was gratifying for her as her family had to drive more than 17 hours to Peoria.Local girl Sayaka Foley of Peoria, Ariz., scored 6 points to win the Girls Middle School section and a Toshiba laptop. Sayaka represented Arizona at the 2008 Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls, which was held last July at Texas Tech.
Rebekah Liu of California was one of the two girls to score a perfect 7-0 to win the Girls High School section, a Dell laptop and a digital chess clock.
By winning their sections, Diamond, Kristen, Aiya, Sayaka and Rebekah automatically qualified for the 2009 Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls to be held at Texas Tech on July 26-31.
Winston Zeng, a second-grader from Arizona, scored 7-0 in the Boys Primary section to win a Toshiba laptop and a digital clock.
Tommy Polgar of Murfee Elementary School in Lubbock scored 6.5 points to win the Boys Elementary section and a Dell laptop. In addition to the main event, Polgar won the National Open Puzzle Solving Championship overall section with the score of 10 out of 10. He also tied for first in the National Open Blitz in his section. His brother, Leeam, won his section in the National Open Puzzle Solving Championship. In spite of having only two players (a team usually has at least three), Tom and Leeam captured third place in the National Elementary team division for Murfee.
Dipro Chakraborty of Arizona scored 6.5 points to win the Boys Middle School section and a Toshiba laptop.
Andy Lin of Arizona scored 6.5 points to win the Boys High School section and a Toshiba laptop.
Chakraborty, Andy, Liu and Foley were also awarded scholarships to Texas Tech (each valued at $36,000 for out-of-state students).
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