Ultimate Gladiator U1150 Quad 3/30/2025
In the first Ultimate U1150 Gladiator Aariv, Michelle, Mia and Sofia battled it out to see who would prevail and become the Ultimate Gladiator! After a hard fought battle between all 4 of them Aariv became the Ultimate Gladiator with a score of 3/3 taking 1st place and the $50 cash prize. 2nd Place went to Michelle with a score of 1.5/3 winning the chess book prize. I am sure that Sofia and Mia will come to April’s Ultimate Gladiator for revenge!
Florida State Scholastic Championship 2025
Congratulations to Mr. Aariv for finishing with a score 3.5/5 and Placing 8th in the Florida Scholastic State Championship K-3. I am very proud of this young man and his chess prowess!
Myself, Nelson Frioni, Jose Diaz and Juan Dominguez at the Southern Class. None of us were able to place and claim a prize but we had a great time playing chess and having some laughs with old friends!
Southern Class Championship 2025
64 Squares Scholastic Tournament 3/1/2025
Congrats to Aariv for another fine display of chess mastery winning 4.5/5 games in K-3 sharing 1st Place as co-champion. Florida State Scholastic Championship Aariv is coming for you!
FSCL South Regional Tournament 2/22/2025
Congratulations goes to Mr. Aariv for placing 5th with 4/5 in the K-3 section and adding another trophy to his collection. I have to admit I am a little jealous as I have not won a single trophy yet this year…
Central Region Chess2Think Tournament 2/8/2025
The Ponce Team finished middle of the pack at 7th place out of 14 schools. Not to shabby considering we only had 4 players in our team when compared to the other schools that had between 8-10 players. The team consisted of Joseph, Felix, Sofia and Viviana. Our two top players leading the team were Joseph and Felix who both finished with respectable scores of 3/5. Very proud of the team. They will be ready for the Super Nationals in May!
U1950-U1550 Ultimate Gladiators 2/1/2025
In this weekends tournament the power of youth prevailed! In the U1950 section Platon Kaidash overcame all obstacles and got it done by defeating Keijon Dennis, Juan Dominguez and a draw with Olivio De La Torre last month’s winner and finished with a score of 2.5/3. Congrats to Platon for being victorious.
In the U1550 section Emmanuel Falana rose to the challenge and defeated all three of his opponents. His victims were Anthony Borzillo, Thomas Barkasi and Jose De La Colina. Congrats to Emmanuel for being the Ultimate Gladiator!!
Emmanuel and Platon in their glory!
Emmanuel and myself.
64 Squares Scholastic Tournament 1/11/2025
In his first tournament of 2025 Mr. Aariv came to the chess battlefield punching hard! He knocked out all 5 of his opponents to become the K-3 1st place champ! Congrats to Aariv. I am very proud of him. Maybe the next Anand or Gukesh…
Ultimate Gladiator Quads U1950-U1550 Tournament 1/4/2025
In Quad A U1950 Olivio De La Torre Placed 1st by defeating me, Juan Dominguez and a draw the 3rd round with Nelson Frioni (AKA Rambo) finishing with a score of 2.5/3. Congratulations to Olivio for such a fine display of chess mastery!
In Quad B U1550 Artem Tarnavskyi dominated and won all 3 games. He defeated Anthony Borzillo (AKA The Don), Sagi Abiri and Rafael Tome finishing with a score of 3/3. Congratulations to Artem for being invictus!
Olivio De La Torre
Artem Tarnavskyi
64 Squares Scholastic Tournament 12/14/2024
Battling it out in the last tournament for 2024. Congrats goes to Mr. Aariv for being on fire and winning 4/5 games placing 3rd in the K-3 section. Awesome tournament! We all had fun. Also if you look closely in one of the photos one of my students seems to have so much chess wisdom that he has a beard and has gone through some strange growth spurt….
