The 9th Annual New York State Girls Championship was held November 15-16, hosted by Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and presented by Chess Center of New York and Little House of Chess.
A total of 620 girls competed across nine sections, setting not only a new record for the event, but also a record for a US Chess girls’ tournament. This year, 73 teams competed in the event.
WIM Chloe Gaw won the K-12 (Open) NYS Girls Championship, with a 5½/6 score. A junior at The Chapin School in Manhattan, Chloe won the right to represent New York in next summer’s WIM Ruth Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions in Grand Rapids, MI. She earned $500 for her first-place finish, which featured five consecutive wins before a draw in her final game.
Allyson Yu won $300 for her second-place finish with a 5/6 score. Yu was the only competitor in the K-12 Championship for her school: Elizabeth Mellick Baker Elementary School in Great Neck. Yes, the 1900-rated Yu is only in fourth grade! Allyson and Chloe had a fierce battle with extended attacks and counterattacks in Round 3 (see below).
Manhattan’s Stuyvesant High School won the top team prize in the K-12 Championship, led by WCM Hema Vikas and Aliana Fausto, who finished third and fourth, respectively, on tiebreaks with 4½/6 scores, taking home $100 apiece. Hema also had a good position against Chloe in Round 4, but that was all wiped out by a sudden kingside attack:
In the K-6 Championship section, WCM Abigail Zhou, a fourth-grader, won with a 5½/6 score. Her team, Speyer Legacy School, also led by Aileen Lou (4½/6) and Leah Maya (3½/6), finished in second place with 13½/18, a half-point behind Success Academy Charter School Midtown West…