Jenks Winter Open Breaks Oklahoma Record

Press Release - 15 January 2006
Oklahoma Scholastic Chess Organization (OSCO)
www.okschess.org

With 229 participants, the Jenks Winter Open at Jenks East Intermediate School last Saturday broke the old record of 225 players for the largest USCF rated chess tournament in Oklahoma history. This Scholastic event had players from 50 schools in Oklahoma and Arkansas. It was the 4^th OSCO Grand Prix event of a truly amazing season.

The K-12 Premier section ended after four G/60 rounds in a 3.5 tie between David Luscomb of Claremore’s Will Rogers Jr High and Devin Hughes from Edmond. When the dust settled after an exciting Blitz tiebreak match, David took home the 1^st Place trophy and top honors on the day.

The K-12 Under 1100 rated section also ended in a tie with 4.5 points after 5 rounds. Joseph Nigh from Monte Cassino in Tulsa battled it out over the Blitz board with Hannah Farell of Bixby. Joseph came out the victor and won the 1^st Place trophy.

In the 72 player K-12 U900 section, two unrated players in their first USCF rated tournament went undefeated with 5-0 scores. In yet another Blitz tiebreak, Philip Geurin of Tulsa’s Holland Hall faced Chris Campbell from Oakdale Jr High in Rogers, Arkansas. Ultimately, Philip won the top spot and the 1^st Place trophy. Team competition in this section was also extremely close with five school teams having 12 to 13 points, including: Ida Freeman Elementary – Edmond; Gore High School; Oakdale Jr High; Will Rogers Jr High; and the winner with 13 points, Carl Albert High School from Midwest City.

There were 61 competing in the K-6 U700 section. The only one with a perfect score after 5 rounds was Conner Campbell of Heritage Hall in Edmond, clearly winning 1^st Place. Tied for 2^nd place with 4.5 points apiece were Evan Drumm of Edmond’s Central Middle School and Nathan Duncan with the Heartland Homeschool Association. Ida Freeman Elementary with 27 players in the section won the 1^st place team honors by a margin of 4 points over Heartland Homeschoolers who edged out Madison Elementary for 2^nd.

Zunluo Wang of Madison Elementary School in Norman was the clear winner in the K-4 U500 section with a perfect 5-0 score. Close on his heels in a 4.5 point tie for 2^nd place were David Saville of Wolf Creek Elementary in Broken Arrow and Matthew Yanik of Jenks East Elementary. The 68 wee tikes in the K-4 U500 section also created some team competition excitement with 5 schools within a 2.5 point spread, including: Jenks West Elementary, Jenks Southeast Elementary and Ida Freeman Elementary of Edmond. Tied for 1st with 14 points apiece were Jenks East Elementary and Madison Elementary School from Norman. Madison edged out JEE on tiebreak points by a small margin and took home the 1^st Place team trophy.

This event was a fundraiser for the Jenks Community Education Chess Program headed up by Rod Whitlatch. JCECP is probably the largest scholastic chess program in Oklahoma with over 80 members. Several club parents and supporters volunteered to assure an enjoyable event. Oklahoma State Champion Chuck Unruh also spent the entire day in the skittles area going over games and coaching the participants between rounds.

Chief TDs were Mike Covington of Sand Springs and Pete Ferris from Coweta with assistance from Senior TD Mike Swatek from Claremore. The rest of the certified USCF TD volunteer staff included Robert McDonough from Jenks (K-12 Premier), Jim Gray from Stillwater (K-12 U1100), Charles Unruh from Owasso (K-12 U900), Lauren Shaffer from Chelsea (K-4 U500) and Rod Whitlatch from Jenks. The TD staff and Jenks volunteers pulled off a miracle for such a large event and had the top two sections playing at the scheduled start time. The three larger sections were playing a very short time later. All sections had at least 2 rounds in before their lunch break. The K-4 section finished 3 rounds by lunch and was finished at 2:30.

57 USCF memberships will be processed for this event. This brings OSCO’s total USCF memberships to 233 submitted since 15 October.

There have been over 340 individual players in the first 4 of 6 OSCO Grand Prix events. The OSCO Board met during the afternoon at the tournament and approved the 2006-7 OSCO Grand Prix schedule. There will be eight of these events next year to support the impressive growth of scholastic chess in Oklahoma since the formation of OSCO 3-years ago. Four events will be held in both the OKC and Tulsa metro areas. To accommodate busy schedules, players will accumulate OSCO Grand Prix points from 6 of the 8 events, including the two State Championships.

OSCO Grand Prix event #5 will be 11 February at Madison Elementary School in Norman. OSCO’s Grand Prix finale, the Oklahoma State Scholastic Championship, will be at Carl Albert High School in Midwest City on 4 March. It’s expected to be another record breaking event. More information about these tournaments and all OSCO activities is on-line at www.okschess.org .

Thanks to all of the Teachers, School Administrators, Parents, Coaches, Tournament Directors and other Volunteers that have worked together to help build Oklahoma scholastic chess to this level in just a few years.