Date and Location
April 12, 2025
Columbia Chess Club
6169 St. Andrews Road
Columbia, SC 29212
Registration Details
Open to all SC K-12 Girls (Girls are permitted and encouraged to play in both State Championship on March 22 as well as Haring Tournament on April 12)
Online Registration Only. $30 by April 5, 2025, $40 thereafter. Registration closes at 8:30 a.m. the morning of the tournament.
All equipment provided. No check-in required: players not reporting to their first round game before their time expires will be withdrawn from the tournament. Please contact info@columbiachess.org if there are any issues with your registration.
Pairings and standings available in real time online, see "Pairings & Standings" in menu.
Active USCF membership required. Memberships can be purchased/renewed at uschess.org/join-us-chess.
Format
The Haring Qualifier tournament is organized as a single-section (K-12) tournament, 5-Round Swiss G/30;d5.
Schedule
Round 1: 10:00 a.m.
Round 2: 11:20 a.m.
Round 3: 1:30 p.m.
Round 4: 2:50 p.m.
Round 5: 4:10 p.m.
Awards: 5:40 p.m.
Prizes
Top 8 receive trophies. Superlative awards to youngest participant, best debut, and biggest upset.
The SC Chess Association awards the first place finisher an invitation and a stipend to compete as the South Carolina representative to Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions. The WIM Ruth Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions is an annual invitational event run by US Chess that has determined the Haring National Champion since 2013. The 2024 champion was FM Zoey Tang (2337, OR). A total of $18,700 in prizes will be awarded, including $5,800 in scholarship and cash prizes to the champion. The champion will also qualify for the U.S. Girls Junior Championship and either the World Youth Championship or the World Cadet Championships.
The second place finisher in the SC Girls Scholastic Championship is named the South Carolina Representative to the Susan Polgar Invitational Tournament in St. Louis, MO, and given a stipend for attendance.
This "Hannah 'Tori' Whatley GRIT Award," started by the Whatley family in 2015, honors a young South Carolina female chess player chosen to compete at the Susan Polgar Girls Invitational. Named after Tori Whatley, the first South Carolinian girl to attend in 2008 as a 6th grader, it celebrates her tenacity. She competed six times, a rare feat, and was known for upsetting higher-rated players, like in her debut when she drew a player 518 points above her and beat Virginia’s champion. In 2012, she placed 22nd. Tori joined Webster University’s SPICE program in 2015, the only North American female on the team until 2018. After earning a studio art degree, she worked briefly at the World Chess Hall of Fame and now studies nuclear engineering at Florida International University.
Sponsored by Tori and her dad David, a former scholastic chess coordinator, the award reflects their love for chess and aims to inspire others to pursue their passions.