Hello, Kids and Parents! Our first chess tournament for the 2007-08 school year was a great success. About 140 kids, from all over New York City, match wits against each other over the board.

As usual, PS 116 M was well represented. The schools with the most kids who came were Dalton, Hunter, Horace Mann, and NEST. In all kids from 26 different public and private schools chose to participate on their school holiday. Not bad, especially considering it was a very hot day for the second week of October.

In the Championship section Zachary Rifkin took top honors, beating Aaron Landesman in a 4-game blitz playoff.

The Reserve section had the most number of kids with 34. Hal Rives and Corey Brown both had perfect scores, though Hal won due to tie-breaks. Eight kids had three points, with Rebecca Agrest taking 3rd again due to tie-breaks. PS 116 M took the team trophy.

In all 24 kids played in the Primary section which was the section that had the most number of different schools represented. Riva Singh took clear 1st with a perfect score. Six other kids tied with 3 points out of 4, though Alex Fox took 2nd, and Silver Lifton took 3rd due to tie-breaks. The team trophy was taken home by St. Ann's, barely edging out PS 116 M for the honor.

The Novice 2 section had 10 kids. Nuriel Leve, Camille Okeele, and Megan Lee each finished with three points. NEST blew away the opposition for the team trophy with 7.5 points.

Novice 1 had 29 kids. Oliver Weiner took 1st place with a perfect score. Yash Waghani took 2nd place, even though he also had a perfect score, but was beat out by tie-breaks. NEST took the team trophy with 13.5 points.

In the No Score section was especially hard-fought, and a rare 10-way tied occurred. The result was that each of the kids in this section took were able to take home a trophy.

The next P.S. 116 tournament will be held on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007.