The 12-year-old Wendell Middle School seventh-grader saw an advertisement in one of her father's chess magazines touting a national tournament just for girls.

Agner, who has played chess since she was three, decided that was the tournament for her.

Her father, Carlito, agreed on one condition: that she practice every day leading up the tournament.

And so she did.

All that practice paid off with a fifth-place finish in the All-Girls National Chess Championships. Competing against much higher-rated players, Agner pulled off a series of stunning upsets to finish in the hardware.

Agner missed the first day of competition on April 16 because of school. When she arrived in Columbus, she was awarded half a point. On Saturday, she raced through the field, playing and winning all three games she played.

On Sunday, she lost her first game of the tournament to a player from New Jersey, before closing out her tournament play with another win.

Agner tied for fourth place with 4.5 points, but took home the fifth-place trophy because she was tied with the one player who beat her in head-to-head competition.

Over the two days she played, Agner dispatched players from New York, Tennessee and Alabama.

Agner says she likes the game of chess because it is a solo exercise.

"It's not a team sport. When you're playing a sport like soccer, you always have someone else you can point to if something goes wrong. But in chess, it's all up to you," Agner said.

Agner says she was pleased to place as high as she did. "I wanted to come home with a trophy and they gave out tophies to the top 15 players," Agner said. There were 38 players competing in Agner's 12 and under age bracket.

To put Agner's accomplishment in perspective, consider the recent NCAA finals. Upstart Butler pushed traditional power Duke to the limit before falling. Agner finished just one point out of first place in the tournament. Prior to the event, Agner's chess rating, which is based on previous tournament experience and finishes, was just over 1,000. Playing against players who were as many as 200 ratings points higher, Agner won four of her five games.

"When you play a player who's 200 points lower than you are, you're supposed to win," said Carlito Agner who is, himself, a chess master. "I was never comfortable. It was a great achievement for her because the other players were very strong."

Carlito and Cheri (pronounced sheh-REE) spent time after each match conducting a post-mortem of the game, trying to decide what Cheri did right and what mistakes she made. The father and daughter also practiced the skill of thinking about her next move while her opponent was moving. "She was able to manage her time while trying to think," Carlito Agner said.