Matthew Fishbein of Cape Elizabeth, Maine’s top-rated chess player and recently recognized national master, won his third state individual high school open championship on Saturday at the University of Maine in Orono.

Fishbein, 16, won all four games played, beating his Cape Elizabeth High School teammate Wesley Parker in the final match, said Dan DeLuca, vice president of the Maine Chess Association. Parker took second place in the championship.

Other individual 2014 champions are William Xu of Bangor, Grade 3 and under; Oliver Brown Patricio of Lamoine, Grade 6 and under; Ian Youth of the Breakwater School in Portland, Grade 8 and under; and Haley DeLuca Lowell of Aurora and Matthew Spear of Holden (tied), high school and under, rated 1200 and below.

Fishbein, a sophomore, won the 2013 state individual high school open championship as a freshman, just a few years after winning it for the first time when he was in sixth grade, which made him the youngest champion ever in that category.

In other scholastic competition, Fishbein won the middle school individual state championships when he was in the seventh and eighth grades, contributing to a total of 13 individual and team scholastic title wins. On March 8, Fishbein helped his high school team win its third state championship, also at UMaine.

Fishbein started playing when he was 4 and started competing when he was 7. He won the overall state championship, including adults, in 2012 and 2013. For the first, he was in eighth grade and only 14, the youngest Mainer ever to win that competition.

Fishbein received the official title of national master in February. With a rating of 2205 in a system that puts senior masters at 2400 and above, Fishbein is No. 21 among 16-year-old chess players nationwide, according to the federation’s website.

Kelley Bouchard can be reached at 791-6328 or at:kbouchard@pressherald.comTwitter: KelleyBouchard


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