News

Burke Ramagosa '28 Wins National Chess Title

4/1/2026

From March 27–29, four team members of the Bayside chess team competed alongside some 1,500+ players from 35 states at this year’s K–12 High School Nationals Tournament of the US Chess Federation’s Scholastic Nationals Tournament in Chicago, Illinois.

The event is played over three days, with three rounds on Friday, three rounds on Saturday, and a final round on Sunday. There are seven divisions of play, based on player ratings. Chess scoring is one point for a win and a half-point for a draw, so the total maximum score is seven points per player.

The Bayside chess team has a rich history of competing in the US Chess Federation's Scholastic Nationals tournaments, and winning consistently with numerous Top 10 finishes for their teams in multiple divisions of play and a Team U1200 National Championship in 2005.

The Bayside players participating in this year’s tournament were freshmen Elias Blossom and Don Chen playing in the U1200 division and sophomore Burke Ramagosa and 7^th grader Jeremy Ou playing in the U800 division.

The achievement of the year for Bayside chess was the performance of Burke Ramagosa. He won the U800 Individual National Title with a perfect record of seven wins, defeating players from Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, and Florida, along with two from Kentucky who were on the winning U800 championship team. (Only one other player in the entire tournament—the winner of the U1200 division—managed to win with a perfect score. All other winners had six wins and one draw.) With this national title, Burke gained an astounding 366 rating points and goes down in Bayside chess history as having won one of the most significant achievements in the 26 years of the program.

Additionally, we are proud to announce that every Bayside player finished with winning records. As a total team, they tallied an excellent score of 19 wins, eight losses, and one draw, gaining an impressive total of 629 rating points. In the U1200 division of 300 players, Don Chen scored four wins, two losses, and one draw and finished 55^th and Elias Blossom scored four wins to three losses and finished 85^th. This was a nice follow-up to last year's Nationals where Elias won the 12^th place medal in the U800 division.

The Bayside chess team is coached by Paul Nager.

Back