By Lev D. Zilbermints
Bloomfield High School now has a new chess champion. One of its students placed third in the New Jersey K-12 Grade School Championship held in Lincroft, NJ on Nov. 22.
Raiden Pipkins, 18, is a senior at Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Playing in the New Jersey K-12 Grade School Championship, Raiden scored three points out of five. This allowed him to place third in the 12th grade section which had only 9 participants.
In addition to winning the 3rd place 12th grade individual, Raiden also won 3rd place 12th grade team representing Bloomfield High School.
The New Jersey K-12 Grade School Championship had boys and girls from kindergarten through 12th grade. There were five rounds in the Swiss-System tournament. A total of 492 children participated in the one-day tournament held in Lincroft, New Jersey. Hal Sprechman was the organizer of the event.
Credible sources told “Local Talk” that when pairings were announced and hung on the wall, there was a mad rush by hundreds of children to where the pairings sheet was hanging.
According to tournament results posted by the United States Chess Federation online, there were 24 entries in the kindergarten section; 43 in the first-grade section; 55 in the second-grade section; 64 in the third-grade section; 53 in the fourth-grade section; 54 in the fifth-grade section; 36 in the sixth-grade section; 45 in the seventh-grade section; 28 in the eighth-grade section; 39 in the ninth-grade section; 26 in the 10th-grade section; 16 in the 11th grade section; and 9 in the 12th grade section.
Apart from Raiden Pipkins, there were other section winners. “Local Talk” lists those who won first place in their sections.
Charlotte Martin won the kindergarten section with 5 out of 5; Jayden Li and Satvi Birudavolu shared first-second, with 4.5 points each, in the first-grade section; Santhosh Ayyapan scored a perfect 5/5 games in the second-grade section; Anson Leong scored 4.5 out of 5 in the third-grade section; Will Nieder scored a perfect 5 in the fourth-grade section; Audrey Keyan Li also scored a perfect 5 in the fifth-grade section; Rishi Madiraju scored 5 out of 5 in the sixth-grade section; Quan Tran scored 5 out of 5 in the seventh-grade section; George Yimin Chen scored 5 out of 5 in the eighth-grade section; Eddy Tian, the only master in the event, scored 5 out of 5 in the ninth-grade section; Jason Lu and Thoshen Omprakash scored 4.5 each in the tenth-grade section; Daniel Shen, Aditiya Raj, Akshay Patel, all scored four points each in the eleventh-grade section; and Roman Brustein scored 5 out of 5 in the twelfth-grade section. Alex Biyanov came in second, with 4 out of 5 in the twelfth-grade section.
Raiden Pipkins is a regular member of the West Orange Chess Club, which meets on Tuesdays at the Toby Katz Civic Center in West Orange. Jason Lu is a former champion of the West Orange Chess Club.
In an email, John Hagerty, President of the West Orange Chess Club, wrote, “It is great to see a young person succeed like this! Raiden is truly one of the bright spots in our club! Kids like him are the future of chess.”
Full Disclosure: Lev D. Zilbermints is the reigning chess champion of Essex and Union counties since 1995 and 2014, respectively. He is also co-Vice President of the West Orange Chess Club as well as President of the Garden State Chess League.
