Handmade Boards from Rio, a Simul with a Twist, and a Tightening Race in San José
Handmade Boards from Rio, a Simul with a Twist, and a Tightening Race in San José
Day three of the American Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship 2026 brought rounds five and six to the DoubleTree by Hilton Cariari in San José, and one team took the day apart. Saco Oliveros de Lince began it level at the top with Harvest Park Middle School and Crescent Heights Academy, and by the evening they had beaten both of them and stood alone two match points clear. Behind them the race for the qualifying places is now the story, with four teams inside a single match point going into the final day.
Round 5
Harvest Park Middle School 1-3 Saco Oliveros de Lince
The first two teams in the field met on table one, level on 7 match points and level on 13 game points, and Peru won it 3-1.
On board one, Marcos Beltrán Meneses Morales (pictured below) from Saco Oliveros de Lince beat Harvest Park Middle School’s Zhuoyuan Wu in a Caro-Kann. White came out of the opening with a small but real advantage, then lost it to an inaccurate move order, and later overextended on the kingside in a way that left weaknesses on both wings. Black took hold of the position, White faltered in defence, and by the time White gave up the queen simply to stay alive the game was already gone. Black was too far ahead in material and White resigned.
Board two saw FM Patrick Liu, the highest rated player in the championship, against Dante Iván Vilca Contreras. Neither player made a mistake. Both finished on 99 per cent accuracy and the draw was the natural result of it, the best chess played anywhere in the round.
Board three produced the same accuracy figure for both players and rather less drama, a series of trades into a dry endgame that neither side could do anything with, and a threefold repetition ended it. It was also a meeting of two unbeaten records: Ethan Sun and WCM Fabiana Jiménez Salas had both won all four of their games, and each dropped a first half point to the other.
On board four, Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas controlled the game from the start, made a passed pawn on the queenside, promoted it, and delivered mate with it.
Crescent Heights Academy 2½-1½ Saint Gabriel's School
Canada came through the other top match, and the two lower boards decided it.
On board one, FM Lucas Mason Pin Qian Yao from Crescent Heights Academy had a pleasant position out of the opening and then misplayed it, and at the critical moment chose an aggressive plan that looked strong but allowed Black to neutralise into balance. Tobias Passmore Bowman held the endgame from there, defending in time trouble with his opponent fifteen minutes ahead on the clock. On board two, Vicente Muñoz Venegas (pictured below) outplayed Adela Sun, and the game was decided after only 18 moves.
That left boards three and four to the two higher rated Canadians, and both delivered. On board four, CM Andrew Yin met an opposite-side castling opening that burned out quickly once the queens came off; White then misplayed into a passive defence, could not shake it in the endgame, and Black converted. Both Yins remain on a full score after five rounds.
Position of the round
2r1r1k1/1p2q1p1/pP2ppp1/1bPpP3/3N4/P3Q1P1/5P1P/1RR3K1 b - - 3 28
Board three, another Caro-Kann and a passive one for Black, produced the finish of the round.
Felipe Brunstein Hauyon played 28…Bc4 here, trying to hold on to the bishop, and it is the losing move. 28…fxe5 29.Nxb5 axb5 30.Rxb5 Qd7 followed by …e4 keeps everything under control.
Instead Aiden Yin, with White, found 29.c6!, and after 29…bxc6? 30.b7! the rook had to go to b8, when 31.Nxc6 forked the queen on e7 and the rook on b8. A piece up with a passed pawn on b7 that the a-pawn later joined, White converted without fuss and took the point that decided the match.
Colombus American School beat Creative Kids Learning Academy 3-1 to move into third, William Nicolás Rodríguez winning again on board one to stay perfect. Colegio Madre del Divino Pastor beat Harrison College School 2½-1½, with Jasmany Shallom Castillo Romero beating AIM Jeremiah Farley on the top board and Charis Stuart losing for the first time, which ended
the last of the Barbadian full scores. Colegio Celta Internacional beat The Oxford School by the same margin, CM Fernando Cortes Medina winning a fifth game from five.
The best result for the hosts came further down the hall, where Colegio Bilingüe San Francisco de Asís swept Escuela Internacional Sampedrana 4-0, the first clean sweep by a Costa Rican school all week. Colegio Humboldt drew 2-2 with Red Bay Primary School and the British School lost 1½-2½ to Martin Klein Schiller. St. Kitts International Academy, who had not won a match since joining the event, beat Projeto Vidançar 2-0.
Round 6
Saco Oliveros de Lince are the top seeds, and the reason is worth noting now that they lead. They do not have the strongest player in the championship, and they are not close to it. What they have is the most even squad in the field: their four players in round five were rated 1980, 1955, 1832 and 1742, a spread of 238 points. Harvest Park have the 2292 at the top of the whole event and a spread of nearly 900. Over eight rounds of four-board matches, the balanced team tends to be the one still standing.
Saco Oliveros de Lince 3-1 Crescent Heights Academy
The two leaders met on table one, level on 9 match points, and Peru won again.
On board one, Meneses Morales delivered for the second time in a day, and this one was hectic. An interesting King's Indian saw Black's two knights chase the white queen around the
board before Black made a positional error that cost material, but that was nowhere near the end of it. Yao held on, and the game reduced to an endgame of rook and two pawns against bishop and two pawns, the sort of position that is winning on paper and awkward in practice. Meneses Morales, with the rook, converted it on technique.
Board two was a nineteen-move miniature, Dante Iván Vilca Contreras finishing with a neat mate.
On board three, Aiden Yin scored the only point for Crescent Heights, beating WCM Fabiana Jiménez Salas to keep his own full score intact. He came out of the opening well, created weaknesses in his opponent's position, traded at the right moments and converted cleanly.
Board four kept the other perfect record alive. Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas had the harder time of it, her opponent more comfortable and holding an advantage for much of the game, until a critical moment arrived and the young Peruvian took it at once.
4r3/p4qkp/1p4pb/1Rp2r2/P1PpN3/3P4/2Q2PPP/1R4K1 b - - 4 25
White has just played 25.Reb1?, and Black struck immediately with the exchange sacrifice 25…Rxe4!, removing the knight and opening the attack. After 26.dxe4 Rxf2 White cannot take: 27.Qxf2 runs into 27…Be3!, pinning the queen to the king.
White tried 27.Qd3 instead, but after 27…Be3 28.Kh1 Rxg2 the king still cannot capture, because 29.Kxg2 allows 29…Qf2+ with mate to follow.
8/p4qkp/1p4p1/2p5/P1PpP3/3Qb3/1R4rP/1R5K b - - 1 29
Instead White played 29.R5b2, and the finish came quickly: 29…Rg4 30.Qe2 Qf4 31.Qf1 Qxe4+ 32.Rg2 Rxg2 33.Qxg2 Qxb1+, and White resigned rather than sit through mate on the next move.
Harvest Park Middle School beat Colombus American School 3-1, the only consolation for Colombia being William Nicolás Rodríguez winning again on board one, where he is now the only board one player in the championship with six wins from six. Colegio Madre del Divino Pastor beat Colegio Celta Internacional 2½-1½, Liang Noel Pérez Wong winning for a second consecutive round and CM Fernando Cortes Medina dropping his first half point of the week. Saint Gabriel's School beat Don Bosco Macas 3-1, The Oxford School beat Colegio y Liceo Nuestra Señora del Verdún 3-1 with Verdún's Juan Esquibel taking the top board, Creative Kids Learning Academy beat the British School 3-1, and Harrison College School drew 2-2 with Martin Klein Schiller.
Three players on a full score
Nine players were unbeaten after four rounds. Three are left after six:
- Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas, Saco Oliveros de Lince, Peru
- Aiden Yin, Crescent Heights Academy, Canada
- William Nicolás Rodríguez, Colombus American School, Colombia
Standings
Peru lead alone with two rounds to play. Behind them three teams share second on 9, and with three places in the Grand Final at stake, the last day decides which of them qualifies to the finals
A day for the side programme
Away from the boards, the day offered a full slate of activities for players, parents and coaches.
The ISCF Master Class Series brought a session for parents, coaches, heads of delegations and federation officials, led by GM Gilberto Hernández before an audience of around fifty.
In the evening the side programme delivered one of its most anticipated events, a Simul with a Twist, a simultaneous exhibition by IM Emmanuel Jiménez, a multiple-time Costa Rican national champion. The format came with an unusual turn: while Jiménez faced his young opponents in the traditional one against many setup, one board was played collectively by the audience, with spectators voting on each move and the majority decision then played on the board.
Rounding out the programme was an offline culinary workshop at the hotel, where a small group of players swapped the chessboard for the kitchen to make empanadas, the golden stuffed pastries that are a staple across Latin America and an everyday favourite in Costa Rica, where they are typically made with corn masa and filled with beans, cheese or meat.
A team with a bigger story
Among the teams in San José is one whose journey began far from any chessboard. Projeto Vidançar, representing Brazil, comes from Rio de Janeiro's Complexo do Alemão, one of the
city's most challenging favelas, and the two girls who travelled to Costa Rica continue a tradition begun at the Asian and African stages of welcoming a girls' team from an underprivileged community onto the world stage.
Founded in 2009 with twelve girls, Vidançar began as a way to give children a means of self-expression through classical ballet, used as a pedagogical tool alongside lessons in the value of education, respect for others and self-esteem. To take part, children must be enrolled in school and keep their grades up. Today the project reaches around 200 boys and girls and has grown well beyond ballet, into hip hop, football, the Brazilian street dance passinho, and most recently chess. What began as a dance school has steadily become a broader educational programme, and chess is its newest chapter: like everything else the project teaches, the game is a tool for concentration, discipline and confidence rather than an end in itself, and it is what brought two of its students all the way to San José. Its work has sent pupils on to the Teatro Municipal Ballet School in Rio and to the Bolshoi school in Joinville.
The girls brought more than their results to San José. They presented the ISCF with a set of handmade chess boards, made by the project's own students, a gift that captured what the Year of Chess in Education is about: chess as a bridge, and as a tool for opportunity, wherever a child begins.
Looking ahead
The competition continues tomorrow, 15 August, with the final rounds as the leading teams push for a place in the Grand Final.
The event is supported by Freedom Holding Corp., the main sponsor of the American Continental Stage and General Partner of the International School Chess Federation, together with the Costa Rican Institute of Sport and Recreation (ICODER). Their continued commitment helps make both the competition and the wider educational and cultural programme possible.
Written by Aruzhan Aldasheva
Day three of the American Continental Stage of the FIDE ISCF World Schools Team Championship 2026 brought rounds five and six to the DoubleTree by Hilton Cariari in San José, and one team took the day apart. Saco Oliveros de Lince began it level at the top with Harvest Park Middle School and Crescent Heights Academy, and by the evening they had beaten both of them and stood alone two match points clear. Behind them the race for the qualifying places is now the story, with four teams inside a single match point going into the final day.
Round 5
Harvest Park Middle School 1-3 Saco Oliveros de Lince
The first two teams in the field met on table one, level on 7 match points and level on 13 game points, and Peru won it 3-1.
On board one, Marcos Beltrán Meneses Morales (pictured below) from Saco Oliveros de Lince beat Harvest Park Middle School’s Zhuoyuan Wu in a Caro-Kann. White came out of the opening with a small but real advantage, then lost it to an inaccurate move order, and later overextended on the kingside in a way that left weaknesses on both wings. Black took hold of the position, White faltered in defence, and by the time White gave up the queen simply to stay alive the game was already gone. Black was too far ahead in material and White resigned.
Board two saw FM Patrick Liu, the highest rated player in the championship, against Dante Iván Vilca Contreras. Neither player made a mistake. Both finished on 99 per cent accuracy and the draw was the natural result of it, the best chess played anywhere in the round.
Board three produced the same accuracy figure for both players and rather less drama, a series of trades into a dry endgame that neither side could do anything with, and a threefold repetition ended it. It was also a meeting of two unbeaten records: Ethan Sun and WCM Fabiana Jiménez Salas had both won all four of their games, and each dropped a first half point to the other.
On board four, Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas controlled the game from the start, made a passed pawn on the queenside, promoted it, and delivered mate with it.
Crescent Heights Academy 2½-1½ Saint Gabriel's School
Canada came through the other top match, and the two lower boards decided it.
On board one, FM Lucas Mason Pin Qian Yao from Crescent Heights Academy had a pleasant position out of the opening and then misplayed it, and at the critical moment chose an aggressive plan that looked strong but allowed Black to neutralise into balance. Tobias Passmore Bowman held the endgame from there, defending in time trouble with his opponent fifteen minutes ahead on the clock. On board two, Vicente Muñoz Venegas (pictured below) outplayed Adela Sun, and the game was decided after only 18 moves.
That left boards three and four to the two higher rated Canadians, and both delivered. On board four, CM Andrew Yin met an opposite-side castling opening that burned out quickly once the queens came off; White then misplayed into a passive defence, could not shake it in the endgame, and Black converted. Both Yins remain on a full score after five rounds.
Position of the round
2r1r1k1/1p2q1p1/pP2ppp1/1bPpP3/3N4/P3Q1P1/5P1P/1RR3K1 b - - 3 28
Board three, another Caro-Kann and a passive one for Black, produced the finish of the round.
Felipe Brunstein Hauyon played 28…Bc4 here, trying to hold on to the bishop, and it is the losing move. 28…fxe5 29.Nxb5 axb5 30.Rxb5 Qd7 followed by …e4 keeps everything under control.
Instead Aiden Yin, with White, found 29.c6!, and after 29…bxc6? 30.b7! the rook had to go to b8, when 31.Nxc6 forked the queen on e7 and the rook on b8. A piece up with a passed pawn on b7 that the a-pawn later joined, White converted without fuss and took the point that decided the match.
Colombus American School beat Creative Kids Learning Academy 3-1 to move into third, William Nicolás Rodríguez winning again on board one to stay perfect. Colegio Madre del Divino Pastor beat Harrison College School 2½-1½, with Jasmany Shallom Castillo Romero beating AIM Jeremiah Farley on the top board and Charis Stuart losing for the first time, which ended
the last of the Barbadian full scores. Colegio Celta Internacional beat The Oxford School by the same margin, CM Fernando Cortes Medina winning a fifth game from five.
The best result for the hosts came further down the hall, where Colegio Bilingüe San Francisco de Asís swept Escuela Internacional Sampedrana 4-0, the first clean sweep by a Costa Rican school all week. Colegio Humboldt drew 2-2 with Red Bay Primary School and the British School lost 1½-2½ to Martin Klein Schiller. St. Kitts International Academy, who had not won a match since joining the event, beat Projeto Vidançar 2-0.
Round 6
Saco Oliveros de Lince are the top seeds, and the reason is worth noting now that they lead. They do not have the strongest player in the championship, and they are not close to it. What they have is the most even squad in the field: their four players in round five were rated 1980, 1955, 1832 and 1742, a spread of 238 points. Harvest Park have the 2292 at the top of the whole event and a spread of nearly 900. Over eight rounds of four-board matches, the balanced team tends to be the one still standing.
Saco Oliveros de Lince 3-1 Crescent Heights Academy
The two leaders met on table one, level on 9 match points, and Peru won again.
On board one, Meneses Morales delivered for the second time in a day, and this one was hectic. An interesting King's Indian saw Black's two knights chase the white queen around the
board before Black made a positional error that cost material, but that was nowhere near the end of it. Yao held on, and the game reduced to an endgame of rook and two pawns against bishop and two pawns, the sort of position that is winning on paper and awkward in practice. Meneses Morales, with the rook, converted it on technique.
Board two was a nineteen-move miniature, Dante Iván Vilca Contreras finishing with a neat mate.
On board three, Aiden Yin scored the only point for Crescent Heights, beating WCM Fabiana Jiménez Salas to keep his own full score intact. He came out of the opening well, created weaknesses in his opponent's position, traded at the right moments and converted cleanly.
Board four kept the other perfect record alive. Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas had the harder time of it, her opponent more comfortable and holding an advantage for much of the game, until a critical moment arrived and the young Peruvian took it at once.
4r3/p4qkp/1p4pb/1Rp2r2/P1PpN3/3P4/2Q2PPP/1R4K1 b - - 4 25
White has just played 25.Reb1?, and Black struck immediately with the exchange sacrifice 25…Rxe4!, removing the knight and opening the attack. After 26.dxe4 Rxf2 White cannot take: 27.Qxf2 runs into 27…Be3!, pinning the queen to the king.
White tried 27.Qd3 instead, but after 27…Be3 28.Kh1 Rxg2 the king still cannot capture, because 29.Kxg2 allows 29…Qf2+ with mate to follow.
8/p4qkp/1p4p1/2p5/P1PpP3/3Qb3/1R4rP/1R5K b - - 1 29
Instead White played 29.R5b2, and the finish came quickly: 29…Rg4 30.Qe2 Qf4 31.Qf1 Qxe4+ 32.Rg2 Rxg2 33.Qxg2 Qxb1+, and White resigned rather than sit through mate on the next move.
Harvest Park Middle School beat Colombus American School 3-1, the only consolation for Colombia being William Nicolás Rodríguez winning again on board one, where he is now the only board one player in the championship with six wins from six. Colegio Madre del Divino Pastor beat Colegio Celta Internacional 2½-1½, Liang Noel Pérez Wong winning for a second consecutive round and CM Fernando Cortes Medina dropping his first half point of the week. Saint Gabriel's School beat Don Bosco Macas 3-1, The Oxford School beat Colegio y Liceo Nuestra Señora del Verdún 3-1 with Verdún's Juan Esquibel taking the top board, Creative Kids Learning Academy beat the British School 3-1, and Harrison College School drew 2-2 with Martin Klein Schiller.
Three players on a full score
Nine players were unbeaten after four rounds. Three are left after six:
- Rihanna Irina Rojas Salas, Saco Oliveros de Lince, Peru
- Aiden Yin, Crescent Heights Academy, Canada
- William Nicolás Rodríguez, Colombus American School, Colombia
Standings
Peru lead alone with two rounds to play. Behind them three teams share second on 9, and with three places in the Grand Final at stake, the last day decides which of them qualifies to the finals
A day for the side programme
Away from the boards, the day offered a full slate of activities for players, parents and coaches.
The ISCF Master Class Series brought a session for parents, coaches, heads of delegations and federation officials, led by GM Gilberto Hernández before an audience of around fifty.
In the evening the side programme delivered one of its most anticipated events, a Simul with a Twist, a simultaneous exhibition by IM Emmanuel Jiménez, a multiple-time Costa Rican national champion. The format came with an unusual turn: while Jiménez faced his young opponents in the traditional one against many setup, one board was played collectively by the audience, with spectators voting on each move and the majority decision then played on the board.
Rounding out the programme was an offline culinary workshop at the hotel, where a small group of players swapped the chessboard for the kitchen to make empanadas, the golden stuffed pastries that are a staple across Latin America and an everyday favourite in Costa Rica, where they are typically made with corn masa and filled with beans, cheese or meat.
A team with a bigger story
Among the teams in San José is one whose journey began far from any chessboard. Projeto Vidançar, representing Brazil, comes from Rio de Janeiro's Complexo do Alemão, one of the
city's most challenging favelas, and the two girls who travelled to Costa Rica continue a tradition begun at the Asian and African stages of welcoming a girls' team from an underprivileged community onto the world stage.
Founded in 2009 with twelve girls, Vidançar began as a way to give children a means of self-expression through classical ballet, used as a pedagogical tool alongside lessons in the value of education, respect for others and self-esteem. To take part, children must be enrolled in school and keep their grades up. Today the project reaches around 200 boys and girls and has grown well beyond ballet, into hip hop, football, the Brazilian street dance passinho, and most recently chess. What began as a dance school has steadily become a broader educational programme, and chess is its newest chapter: like everything else the project teaches, the game is a tool for concentration, discipline and confidence rather than an end in itself, and it is what brought two of its students all the way to San José. Its work has sent pupils on to the Teatro Municipal Ballet School in Rio and to the Bolshoi school in Joinville.
The girls brought more than their results to San José. They presented the ISCF with a set of handmade chess boards, made by the project's own students, a gift that captured what the Year of Chess in Education is about: chess as a bridge, and as a tool for opportunity, wherever a child begins.
Looking ahead
The competition continues tomorrow, 15 August, with the final rounds as the leading teams push for a place in the Grand Final.
The event is supported by Freedom Holding Corp., the main sponsor of the American Continental Stage and General Partner of the International School Chess Federation, together with the Costa Rican Institute of Sport and Recreation (ICODER). Their continued commitment helps make both the competition and the wider educational and cultural programme possible.
Written by Aruzhan Aldasheva
