2024 Grade Level Nationals Chess Tournament

We had 200+ students compete (though not join the picture!) in US Chess' 2024 Grade Level Nationals in National Harbor, Maryland, in December.  Geographically, we had a ton of local DMV area students participate, as well as Academy students from more than 10 other states.

This was a big event with more than 2,600 players from all over the country, and the competition was fierce.  Our students brought home ~20 medals, learned a lot, and had a tremendous amount of fun.

Down below we have some student games from a player in her first nationals and a player who became a master during the event, and some nice pictures of Academy students playing and having fun!

We love doing these meetups at Nationals!  Here's what one Academy parent said:

Henry had the time of this life. 

It was so much fun getting to meet you and put a face with a voice/name.  Truly what I found remarkable was Henry made fast friends with his teammates that he only plays with virtually.  It’s also incredible that these kids only get together a few times a year and remember each other and pick up like no times has lost. 

The community the Magnus Academy room brought together was also fantastic to witness. Henry is usually shy but not when he’s with his people.

Between games students looked at their games with coaches, played chess and bughouse, and played... other games?

Alice's Games

Alice had played in about ten tournaments before nationals, mostly local quads with us, plus the Maryland state tournament.  This was her biggest event so far, and she was excited:

One of the fun things at nationals is that students can get a chance to look at their games with coaches after a lot of rounds, and after one game, I showed Alice a little chance that she missed, to do a fork trick in the opening:

Normally, when you learn something new you have to wait a bit to put it into action, but not this time!  Here's Alice's next game:

One more highlight - here's a nice checkmate in three that Alice found in her last game, for her (at the time) best ever win.  Can you find it?

How to Become a National Master

In order to become a National Master, you need to get your rating to 2200 USCF.  Will had been very close to earning the title for a while - he got to 2199 in October, and had been bouncing around, just under the threshold.  He asked Magnus about it over the summer after they played at our Magnus themed online camp:

Perhaps at Nationals, the fact that he was playing to be national 9th grade champion helped distract him from his quest for master.  Here's a nice tactic from Will's second round win - can you find it?

There are other strong moves here for black - basically any move with the rook on b5 gives a winning advantage, but Will's move was the most forcing.

In round five he beat a master, so heading into round six, Will was 5-0, and in a 4 way tie for first.  The reward for this at nationals is playing a strong master, the top seed in the section, who was rated over 2400.  This game was broadcast:

In the final round, Will earned a chance to play another master: 

And with that final win, Will earned the NM title!  He also took clear second, and was pretty unlucky not to win first - 6.5/7 usually wins at nationals!

A final victory

Anthony is a veteran of Nationals and has played a few times.  One of the nice things about playing at a big tournament is you get a chance to play against and maybe beat tough opponents.  In the first round, Anthony scored a big upset, for his best tournament win... so far!