A tiebreaker determined the winner of the state Scholastic Chess Championship’s K-8 Open Section.

“It all came down to the very last game, and I was very nervous,” Benjamin Lin said, recalling that everything rode on a particular player’s performance. “If he drew or lost, I would get second. But if he won, I would get first.”

He triumphed, which meant Benjamin did, too.

The Hampton Middle School seventh grader cruised through the tournament, held March 16-17 in Harrisburg, with four wins and one draw. Two other competitors among a field of 46 fared similarly.

For the tiebreaker, officials used a method somewhat resembling college football, ascertaining the relative finish positions of each of the players and giving credit for defeating tougher opponents.

Benjamin’s win over the player who finished fourth effectively clinched his championship, which represented a repeat: He won the event in 2023, too.

Even so, another title was far from assured.

“I was confident to a degree,” Benjamin said. “I still knew it would be tough, and I really didn’t expect to win. I thought if I could secure second, that would be fine for me.”

His final game this year came against Wesley Luo, a seventh grader at Sandy Run Middle School in suburban Philadelphia, who came into the tournament ranked No. 1 in his age group by the Pennsylvania State Chess Federation. With both players on relatively equal footing deep into the contest, Wesley offered draw, and Benjamin accepted.

No. 2-ranked Gurru Muthukumaran, who is in eighth grade at Mountain View Middle School in Cumberland County, was the other player to score 4½ tournament points with four wins as a draw.

With his first-place finish, Benjamin qualifies to represent Pennsylvania in the 14th annual Dewain Barber National Tournament of Middle School State Champion, scheduled for July 27-30 in Norfolk, Va.

Benjamin was 3 when his father, Ronghong Lin, bought him his first chess set.

“He could beat me when he was 4 or 5,” his mother, Xinzhu Gu, reported. “And he could beat my husband when he was, like, 6.”

Around that time, Benjamin started piano lessons. He excels in that pursuit, too, as a Pittsburgh Concert Society Young Artist Award honoree.

He has performed twice at Carnegie Hall in New York City and will do so again next month, regaling the audience with Frédéric Chopin’s “Grande valse brillante in E-flat major.”

In addition, he plays violin. He swims. And of course, he spends the better part of each weekday in school.

“He’s busier than I am,” his mom said.

Apparently, he’s discovered a secret that eludes most kids his age — he turns 13 on April 18 — as far as racking up a list of accomplishments:

“Use my time wisely, I guess.”

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