This year was only a four round tournament and had a 3 way tie for first. With tie breaks in place the winner was declared to team "Smarter than a fifth grader". Eleven year-old Michael Knudson who will be in sixth grade next school year had a strong performance on fourth board. Norky is working on a write up for the teams and others are still sending in photos and games in pgn format.

To see the games submitted thus far <click here> or see: http://www.sdchess.org/chess_games/027_game_of_the_week/

To see photos of the tournament <click here> or see: http://sdchess.org/photos/2010%20Team%20Championship/

To see the USCF crosstables <click here> or see: http://main.uschess.org/assets/msa_joomla/XtblMain.php?201006132181

Pierre and Fort Pierre were surrounded by a lot of sandbags but there were not any sandbaggers seen at the SD Teams Chess Tournament held at the AmericInn meeting room. Most of the players and teams performed according to their rating with team Zugzwang taking clear first holding the highest average rating and only average over 1800 in the tournament. 

Some games can be replayed at: sdchess.org/chess_games/050_game_of_the_week

Top board winners were Camilla Baginskaite on one, Jeff Barth tied with Josiah Jorenby on board two, Bob Wallace on the 3rd board, and Jerry John Casteel III on the fourth board. Anyone willing and able to write up an article in more detail can submit it in any format. Game and photos are also welcome in any format (digital is preferred- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) For snail mail submissions please call 605.202.1575 for the address. Photos submitted so far can be viewed at http://sdchess.org/photos/2011_Teams

The South Dakota State Championship Tournament (AKA: the Closed because it is closed to only SD residents) was won by Nels Truelson and Serif Suljic who will share the title of State Champion. The Junior State Champion title is also shared this year. The best performing players age 19 and under were Josiah Jorenby and Michael Knudson. Check back for more details and games as they are typed in and submitted.

<click here> to see the games from the 2010 SD Closed. All the games posted immediately are courtesy of Monroi electronic score sheets. If you don’t use a Monroi please submit your tournament games in a pgn file format to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with in the week if you would like them posted.

After a long, hard winter, it was a perfect spring day on Saturday, March 27, 2010, in Pierre, SD, when 78 students from around South Dakota came together to decide who would be crowned state scholastic chess champions at the Pierre Indian Learning Center.  So, naturally, it just had to be a day of “perfects,” to include one player even nicknamed, “Mr. Perfect,” at this year’s state scholastic chess tournament.