Ohio Elementary Chess Tournament

I took Andrew to the Ohio elementary chess championship tournament last Saturday in Columbus. He and Graham have been participating in chess club at school this spring. I entered Andrew in the novice 4th-6th grade section so we could find out what a chess tournament was like. The picture above is the cafeteria at a high school near Columbus OH. There were over 400 kids K-6 and probably 150 or so parents and chess mentors in this room.
At 10AM the matches were posted. Andrew found his name on the list which told him what chess board (in this case #181) and color he was for the first game. After all the kids were in the gymnasium at their boards all parents had to return to the cafeteria and wait. Gradually kids would come back to the cafeteria either happy or sad.

There were over 200 chess boards set up. Quite a sight!
Everyone played five games. Here is Andrew ready for the next game. Andrew lost his first game but then won his second. In all he won 2 of the five games he was in. His school came in fourth place as a team. Andrews games didn't count for the team because he was in the novice section. Next year he will be in the rated section and be part of the team. I got to play several games with the chess club leader while we hung out waiting for the kids to finish their games. In all we were there for about 8 hours.