May 19, 2025

Silver Knights Chess at SuperNationals VIII

Meetups at national events are a great way to make new friends in the Academy or reconnect with old ones.

Silver Knights Chess Students at SuperNationals

We had an amazing group of about 70 students in Orlando at SuperNationals VIII the weekend of 5/9-5/11. This was a big event with over 4500 players from all over the country. Some students were from our school programs in DC, Maryland, and Virginia, but others were from our Academy program, and joined from California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin!

Online academy members from across the country had a chance to play in person

Adam, Luke, Savetha, and I (Daniel) were there to coach our students between games, and we also had another half dozen coaches who were helping US Chess run the event as tournament directors.

Coach Luke and Coach Savetha analyzing a game with a student

Results and Student Games

As with any time you have a big group, some players had the best tournament of their lives, some had the worst, and most were somewhere in the middle. Regardless, virtually everyone had a great time hanging out in our team room, reviewing games, and playing blitz and bughouse between games.

Our team room was a place to learn or just have fun playing blitz chess

The action between rounds can be pretty intense:

Miles Takes Second Place K-8 u400

One student who had a great tournament: Miles! After the third round, I talked to him for a minute, and he said that he'd won all his games and thought he could win the K-8 Under 1400 section. That's good ambition with more than 180 players in the section! And while Miles lost his next game and didn't win the section... he did win his last three to take second!

Here's a nice win:And here's a cool tactic Miles found in round two (white to play):

Raya Wins a Medal and Keeps a Poker Face

After the third round, Raya brought over her game to look at with me. I asked "how'd it go and how's the tournament going?" She responded by frowning and looking away, which normally translates to "I just lost and am sad." Her older brother Vik was walking by and helped out with "She's won all her games. She's doing great." Raya has an excellent poker face! In her last game, she used a great attack to help win a medal: