Vikes win state championship

Checkmate: Vikes win state chess championship
February 15, 2010
By JENNA HASKITT

The Niles North Vikings chess team dominated the competition during the weekend’s state chess tournament, coasting to a well-deserved championship.

“We have an incredibly strong team. They really played so well and there’s so much team unity. It was really amazing,” said Harry Kyriazes, head coach and Niles North science instructor.

Fielding strong chess teams is nothing new for the Vikings. The team placed third in state last year and got hot at nationals, finishing fourth. This isn’t even the Vikings’ first championship, as the team won state in 2006.

This year’s state champion chess team members are Eric Rosen — board one, Fedor Titov — board two, Saagar Gupta — board three, Michael Chinitz — board four and Evan Spiegel on board five, with Chad Hirsch and David Paykin splitting board six, Rafeh Qazi and Evan Goldstein splitting board seven, and Emmett Barr and Adil Dzelilovic rotating on board eight.

According to tournament rules, eight players represent the high school with the best player playing board one, the second-best playing board two and so on in descending order to the eighth player. Each player, in turn, faces the other school’s comparably ranked player.

A win on board one is worth 12 points for the victor’s team, a win on board two nets 11 points, all the way down to five points for the eighth-seeded winner for a total of 68 possible points. Draws split the points.

Here is the full article.