USM Varsity Chess Team Wins State

USM Varsity Chess Team Wins State

The University School of Milwaukee chess team continued its winning streak at the 2024 State Scholastic Chess Championship, where the varsity team took first place in Division 1—the first time since 2010 that the team has won state. This followed strong finishes at the City Chess Championships and the Wisconsin Scholastic Chess Federation’s grade-level tournament.

The state competition was held at the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh campus on Saturday, March 23 and attended by nearly 400 students across the state. USM’s team (with individual first-place finishes noted) consisted of Ezran Anastas ’25, Alex Chen ’25 (first place, board 4), David Dorn ’28, Aradh Kaur ’26 (first place-board 2), Jind Kaur ’28, Hersh Singh ’24 (first place, board 1), Jiyan Singh ’30, Krish Vasudev ’24, Jason Wu ’27, and Sam Yuan ’29, and was coached by Fred Lange, Upper School math teacher.

USM's varsity chess team is pictured from left: Coach Fred Lange, Alex Chen ’25, Aradh Kaur '26, Krish Vasudev '24, and Hersh Singh '24.

In addition, USM tied for first place with Waupaca High School in the bughouse competitions, although Waupaca earned the first-place trophy on tiebreaks. Bughouse is a chess variant with special capturing rules and fast time controls that is played by four players divided into two teams of two players each. Allied players work to checkmate a player from the other side or make them run out of time. Joining the players above for the bughouse competition were alumnus Chris Seaman ’93 (who was paired with Lange) and former USM student Bradley Schlesinger (who competed with Vasudev).
 

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