Most Improved Players of 2007

January 9, 2008

As another addition to our end of the year/preparing for a new era awards, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all the Trekkers out there who made significant strides throughout the year of 2007.

David Adelberg

David Adelberg was Arizona's Most Improved Scholastic Player in 2007.

The basis for this list was pretty simple: who gained the most rating points. This is not the same system that will be implemented with the MT Grand Prix Cup series, but it does reflect one of the most obvious and concrete ways to measure someone’s progress: the amount of rating points gained. We ran down a list of our tournaments from this past year, but because the list of participants was long, we had to limit the acknowledgments somewhat. Only those who played in 6 ACE events or at least 5 Master Treks, only Scholastic K-12 players, and only those gaining more than 50 points are recognized here. Because this was a list of the most improved “Master” Trekkers, only those Pre Trekkers who made the jump over 1000 at some point during the year are listed.

Now, let’s take a look at the list of the top 20 rating leaps of the year. I should warn everyone that some of the giant increases by our regular Trekkers might be a little frightening. Many on this list are the familiar faces we have seen for a few years, yet some of the most significant improvements were made by fresh faces from all over the State…

  1. David Adelberg 1469-1875 (406 points). Most Improved Player!
  2. Vincent Nguyen 1191-1576 (385 points).
  3. Manas Lakshmiprasad 1000-1343 (343 points). Only playing for one year!
  4. John Gurczak 1459-1795 (336 points).
  5. Kendrick Nguyen 1000-1307 (307 points).
  6. Daniel Pecherski 1259-1563 (304 points).
  7. Mathew Hoffman 1162-1455 (293 points).
  8. Ben Braaksma 1000-1274 (274 points).
  9. Randel Eng 1593-1862 (269 points).
  10. David Godfrey 1000-1226 (226 points).
  11. Alec Andersen 1000-1204 (204 points).
  12. Yash Pershad 1238-1430 (192 points). Played all 10 Master Treks!
  13. Richard Ding 1801-1991 (190 points).
  14. Jayden Chandran 1000-1180 (180 points).
  15. Joshua Zhu 1703-1873 (170 points).
  16. Amanda Mateer 1853-2017 (162 points).
  17. Neil Talanki 1226-1387 (161 points).
  18. Eric Qi 1550-1708 (158 points).
  19. Michaela Johnson 1000-1140 (140 points).
  20. Shunta Hashimoto 1348-1483 (135 points).

Other notables who didn’t quite crack the Top 20 list were Daniel Bryant with 132 points gained, Ryan Harmonick with 114 points gained, Daniel Harmonick with 100 points gained, Dipro Chakraborty with 89 points gained, Phillip Godfrey with 85 points gained, Luke Curry with 82 points gained, Alex Curry earned 81, Ben Marmont who gained 71 points, Kaylan Burleigh with 67 points gained, Richard Qi with 55 points gained, and finally Brennen Lee earned 52.

David Adelberg will be presented with the Most Improved Player trophy at the next Master Trek on January 19th. This date will also serve as the first Master Trek in the Grand Prix Cup series. Details on the purpose and logistics of the MT-Grand Prix Cup can be found on our web site. Thanks to all of you who continue to show your consistent support for ACE tournaments and I hope we all have even more successes in 2008!