This past weekend the Washington State Elementary Chess Championships were held in Redmond. Over 800 kids from around the state participated in the event, which required a qualifying score from one of many sanctioned tournaments.

Brock started the day with the top rating and ended as the š-rated player in the state. Most of the kids had participated in several tournaments before this one while Brock had only been in one where he did quite well, giving him the top seed. He won his first game, played well in the second but came up short, quickly check-mated his opponent in 5 moves in the third game, won his fourth, and did his Packer heritage proud by beating a Bears fan in a long, drawn out game in the fifth and final game. He ended the day with 4 points out of 5. Two kids ended the day with a perfect score of 5, two more had 4.5 points, and 5 others, including Brock, ended with 4 points. Due to his high ranking, which lowered his strength of opponents, he ended up placing 9th. Ninety-nine kids qualified for state in his group out of hundreds. In talking to the other parents, Richard found out that many of the kids have been competing for a long time and have private tutors. Seems a bit over-the-top for such young kids. They all were shocked when they learned that Brock was basically self-taught.

During the awards presentation, the emcee, after giving out all the participation trophies for the kids who had less than 3.5 points, said Now it's time for the bad boys! This lead to tears from Brock later as he said, It really hurt my feelings when he said that. I'm not a bad boy. Maddy once again showed her loyalty and protective nature of her brother during the ceremony. She was quite upset folks weren't cheering more when Brock's name was announced. We are all really proud of Brock and are happy he is so excited about chess.