Minnesota scored 15.5 points on their way to a 20th place finish at the USCF's 2023 National Tournament of State Champions held in Grand Rapids, Michigan July 29 - August 1.
The event was 6 rounds and the state point totals represented the combined results of their players in the 5 separate sections. In the Haring for girls K-12 Nastassja Matus had an excellent performance on her way to a team-leading 4.0 points. In the Barber section for K-8 Vaibhav Kalpaka also posted a strong 4.0 points. In the Rockefeller K-5 Vihaan Pendse scored 3.5 points. In the Denker K-12 it was Alexander Augustine joining the team as a late alternate and playing some tough chess against strong competition to earn 1.0 point. In the Irwin section for 50+ year old seniors it was Tim Radermacher scoring 3.0 points to add to the Minnesota team total.
Team Minnesota's performance was much improved from 2021 when they scored 10.0 points and took 37th place among the states. However, the Minnesota Team did drop back a bit from their stellar 2022 performance when they scored 18.5 points to finish 10th. Congratulations to all of our Minnesota State Champions for representing the Minnesota Chess Community in Michigan this past week!