January 14, 2001

SOUJOURNER TRUTH CHESS TOURNMAMENT FOR GIRLS
I just read the San Jose Mercury’s article on the Sojourner Truth Chess Tournament for Girls. Doug Shaker, the Director, has been lucky to get nice coverage–photographs and stories–in the three years that he has held the competition. The tournament has grown each year and this year 164 girls from Seattle Washington to San Diego contested for ten trophies in each grade. I will attach some photographs I took to this cyber-newsletter on our website as soon as they come back from Kodak. Doug is fearful that he may have to locate another site next year as he does not think the Menlo Park Recreation Center will support another increase in players. While I am sure Doug will immediately post all the results, I will provide some highlights–well, at least of the kindergarten through sixth grade competition since I did not return today for the seventh through twelfth finals.

Liz Oliphant, in kindergarten, won all her five games in the combined kindergarten and first place section. She was awarded the kindergarten trophy and Eeway Hsu, Christine Hsu and Christine Tataru were declared co-champions of the first grade division with 3 points each. Entering the final round of the second grade section, Ankita Roy, had four points and had already defeated last year’s first grade champions. She accepted a draw and walked home with her second Sojourner Truth championship. Ankita won the kindergarten title in the first competition.

Amy Wann and Vivian Fan entered the final round of the third grade section with identical four points. This division was the largest with 24 players. Vivian and Amy are classmates and best friends at Weibel Elementary School in Fremont. They knew that they could agree to a draw and share the title–but, they fought it out to the bitter end. Amy walked away with the first place trophy and Vivian shared second place with another classmate Alice Cheng and Emilia Krubnik.

Melinda West, 1221, came from Southern California to win first in the fourth grade section. Isabel Tseng, who last year insisted on playing three of her games with four Queens–stalemating two of them–lost only to Melinda and tied for second with Caitlin Stanton.

The fifth grade players seemed to have more problems with the thirty-minute time controls then with their opponents. In one game, Kimberly Anonuevo from Wisdom and Jessica Hsueh from Weibel, both students of Richard Shorman, both had flags hanging by a thread when Kimberly’s fell. Jessica drew another game because of time pressure. Iris Kokish won with five points. Moreover, while I watched her play great chess, she never tested her skills against Kimberly, Jessica or Carrie Ho who finished second and third.

In sixth grade, Sherin Rehmat and Kate Yaropolova drew in their fourth game. Both went on to defeat their opponents in their final game to share the title of champion. Sherin took home the first place trophy on tiebreaks.

Everyone I spoke to said that if Doug Shaker produces the State Scholastic Championships in March as well as he did this girl’s competition, he and Riley Hughes(co-director) will have an extremely successful tournament. Doug was also able to locate some very efficient volunteers to aid in registration, distributing door prizes and as tournament directors. He even got his wife, a neighbor girl and another woman to handle latrine duty–now that deserves special kudos. Congratulations Doug on a job well done.

ELIZABETH SHAUGNESSY’S BERKELEY CHESS SCHOOL AWARDED $25,000
Doug Shaker held The Region 11 (the Far West) Women’s Championship) at the same time as Sojourner Truth. I said hello to Elizabeth Shaughnessy, former Irish Women’s National Champion and recent member of the Irish Chess Olympiad Team, who was competing. She informed me that the Avanti Foundation awarded her non-profit Berkeley Chess School $25,000. Senator Bob Dole was present to deliver the awards. Elizabeth and I laughed over the conservative Robert Dole presenting an award to a Berkeley group. Elizabeth presently has teachers going into 105 schools to teach children chess.

FOX ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TOURNAMENT
I am happy to say that at now and then a coach does send me a bit of news about their program. From Dennis Myers:
Between 11/27/00 and 1/08/01 the Fox School Chess Club conducted its Fall Quads tournament. The tournament succeeded despite competition from other major holiday school activities and the outbreak of colds and flues. Listed are the section titles and first prize trophy winners:

Morphy: Eric Soderstrom (751), 5th grade (won in playoff against Ravi Raval)
Steinitz: Tanner Kaptanoglu (817), 3rd grade
Lasker: John Kim (570), 5th grade
Smyslov: Michael Ryan (unr), 2nd grade (won in playoff against Alice Adelman) {Each game in this group was a battle royale and exciting to watch}
Tal: Alan Kaptanoglu (unr), 1st grade
Fischer: Christine Tataru (unr), 1st grade
Capablanca: Josh Lasell (unr), 4th grade
Karpov: Peter Coling (unr), 3rd grade
Spassky: Luke Patten (unr), 2nd grade

A FEW NORTHERN CALIFORNIANS–VERY FEW--AT THE NATIONAL GRADE LEVEL IN FLORIDA, DEC 15-17
Results:
FIRST GRADE out of 88:18th Hwang, Alan REGNART (755) 4.0 W32 L12 W65 W20 L19 W34
SECOND GRADE OUT OF 139: 13th Zierk, Steven C BLOSSOM HILL (984) 5.0 W75 W12 W27 W32 L9 W39
FIFTH GRADE OUT OF 186: 28th Chien, Edward WISDOM CHESS (1154) 4.0 W86 L21 W115 L45 W123 W110
121th Konkol, Michael 680 2.5 W176 L46 L44 W179 L53 D124
SIXTH GRADE OUT OF 193: 98th Hui, Kyle WEIBEL (707) 3.0 W174 L91 L65 L106 W156 W150

7th Grade Out of 131: 34th Wood, Jared C BURINGAME (1325) 4.0 W44 L29 W71 W58 W24 L9
8th Grade OUT OF 91: 7th Pearson, Michael BOREL (1832) 5.0 W59 W26 W4 W16 W5 L1
9th Grade out of 70: 9 Yost, Keith (1872) 4.5 W47 D4 W32 D7 W15 D5

NEW TO TOP 50 IN THEIR AGE GROUPS FOR DECEMBER 2000 45.Lev Pisarsky 1766 (13-14)
50. Wesley Chen 1509 (11-12)
48. Nazee Moghadam (12) 1014 Girls Under 13

2000 SACRAMENTO HIGH SCHOOL CHAMPIONSHIP AND DECEMBER ELEMENTARY SCHOLASTIC PRIZE WINNERS

Grades 9-12 (Trophies, players listed in tie break order):

1 William Terry 5.0
2 Jose L Rivera 4.0
3 Brannan Ramirez 4.0
4 Brenda Saeturn 4.0
5 Kao L Saeteurn 3.0
6 Juli Villalpando 3.0
7 Monica Ceballos 3.0
8 Nikhil Chand 2.5
9 Vanessa Gonzalez 2.5
10 Sunish Aggarwal 2.5

1st Place Team: Biggs High School, 17 points 2nd Place Team: Luther Burbank, 10 points 3rd Place Team: Florin High School, 2.5 points

Grades 7-8 (Trophies, players listed in tie break order)

1 Christopher Wihledal 4.5
2 David Rivera 4.0
3 Miles Mabray 4.0
4 Emmanuel Garcia 4.0
5 Deven Benson 4.0
6 Chris Saeturn 3.5
7 Cameron Knipe 3.5
8 Jacob Green 3.5
9 Keith Schwarz 3.0
10 Andrew Gutierrez 3.0

1st Place Team: Biggs Middle School, 16 points 2nd Place Team: Commodore Stockton, 10.5 points 3rd Place Team: Arden Middle School, 9.5 points

Grades 4-6 (Trophies, players listed in tie break order)

1 Daniel Schwarz 4.5 (Won a play off for first place)
2 Tyler K Woodruff 4.5
3 Tyler K Wilken 4.0
4 Anyon Harrington 4.0
5 Jeremy Tempkin 4.0
6 Kevin Mani 4.0
7 Pamela Saeturn 3.5
8 Dylan J Schaefer 3.0
9 Armando Chaparro 3.0
10 Tyler Riggs 3.0

1st Place Team: Biggs Elementary, 12.5 points 2nd Place Team: Cowan Fundamental School, 11.5 points 3rd Place Team: North Davis Elementary, 7.5 points

Grades K-3 (Trophies, players listed in tie break order)

1 Graham Mc Daniel 5.0
2 Brandon Brown 4.0
3 Jacob Hall 4.0
4 Colin Mc Daniel 3.0
5 Louis De Pello 3.0
6 Anna De Pello 3.0
7 Katy Schaefer 3.0
8 Chinmai Raman 2.0
9 Ricky Bunch 2.0
10 Riley Brian 2.0

1st Place Team: North Davis Elementary, 12 points 2nd Place Team: Sacramento Christian Academy, 6 points 3rd Place Team: Alta-Dutch Flat School, 4 points

Thanks to John McCumiskey

DECEMBER 9th WEIBEL QUADS

The first article in the January/February California Chess Journal bore the headline: “CalChess Scholastic Quads Attract 167 and 190 Players to New Site.” I laughed–well, almost cried. Those numbers, I am sure, seemed very large to Frisco Del Rosario, the Journal’s editor, when he produced the issue. Now, I longed for the simpler days I wrote about in that Journal article. My Weibel Quads drew 332 players on December 9. I know that number exceeds any quads ever held in California and is larger then our State Scholastic Championship six years ago. I wonder if any quads in the country have come close to matching those numbers.

At the beginning of that week I had 180 players registered. I knew from experience that the mail would bring in another 30 to 50 players. I spoke to the principal of Weibel and asked for another room and since the weather indicated rain , a location for parents. She kindly consented. The mail brought about 90 entries by week’s end, but I figured I could handle the increase with the new room, the tables I bought to place in the cafeteria and the people who volunteered to help. What I did not expect was 59 late entries. Usually, I get five or ten because of a slight increase in the fee.

The amazing part of this nightmare was that we only started 15 minutes late. I must say thank you a million times to the registration people and the Weibel custodian for this miracle. Dr. Dennis Alfaro, who ran his first successful quad in Alamo last May and will do the same this year, showed up unexpectedly. He is a driven worker and along with the experience of Venu Subramaniam, who also has a readable handwriting, we got everyone registered rapidly.

The difficult task is always setting the four people at each quad. I try to avoid pairing people from the same clubs and from dramatically different school grades. I also look to see if I can prevent those who have provisional ratings (having played under 20 rated US Chess Federation games) from being in the same quad with those with permanent ratings. I must keep the ratings within a 100-point range.

I then pass the four labels to Kim Ma, my long time helper and efficiency expert. She with the help of a few other parents and her son Timothy place them on the wall charts and the tournament directors run them over to the posting area. We had set up for 70 quads. When Kim informed me we were going over 70, I panicked. I had no other place to sit anyone. The Weibel custodian. Miriam, came to the rescue. She opened two other classrooms. She is new to the school this year, but I knew her from when our boys, both High School seniors, attended pre-school. She has always had a smile on her face and she handled this mass of kids and confusion with a relaxed posture. I need to take lessons from her. I yelled at the parents to get out of the playing rooms so we could get started and told one person he could take his kid home when he kept insisting that I read out all 332 names and their quads. He was right in that the postings were too close and children and parents crunched together to read their locations. I knew it would work out, but next time I will have the tournament directors spread the quad sheets out in wider areas. Well, with all of that, as I said, we got the first round under way only fifteen minutes late. I have been to tournaments, like LERA, where with under 100 players, people have waited around an hour before the pairings are posted. So again, kudos to an experienced group of parents and directors.

Ewelina Krubnik (1311) appeared on cover of the last issue of the California Chess Journal with the information that she shined at the CalChess Scholastic Quads. As the top rated young female player in the Bay Area, she deserved the headline and the cover photograph. She defeated three other talented players at the November quads. However, she did not fair as well in December. Timothy Ma (1250), who she had defeated soundly the month before, revenged his loss and took home the first place trophy in Quad 1. Tim also won his games against Michael O’Brien(1503) and Jared Wood(1325). Since Ewelina annotated her win against Timothy for the January/February issue of the Journal, I invited Timothy to analyze their December game. I am adding it to the end of this newsletter.

Those with ratings over a 1000 had time controls of 45 minutes and the remainder set their clocks at 5:30 providing each player with 30 minutes. Frisco Del Rosario, the Editor of the California Chess Journal and an Expert rated chess player, whose new book on the world chess champion Capablanca is awaiting publication, ably directed the higher rated quads in a separate room. His photo should appear to the right of this paragraph. I love Frisco, as he works to exhaustion as long as you provide him with enough food. I still wonder where he puts it all.

One of the major reasons for the dramatic increase in the number of player in the December quads is due to the expansion of chess programs in the schools. Riley Hughes and his Know Chess sent 59 players to these quads to prepare them for the State Championships in March at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I might note that Riley and his cohort, Doug Shaker, are producing that meet this year. Riley’s program has near 600 children participating. Chris Torres and Nick Ayala, who run a few of my Success Chess School teams (Warm Springs, Challenger–Pomeroy & Sunnyvale, and Gomes) inspired their players to attend. With the addition of the amazing growth at Weibel and Wisdom chess this year, it is no wonder that 332 children appeared to contest for the 12-inch trophies.
If Academic Chess, with its myriad of students all over Northern California, and Steve Cohen’s UPSCL ever decided to direct players to the US Chess Federation competitions, our state championship would break the 2000 player mark. This would out do the great scholastic chess numbers at the championships in states like Texas, New York and Arizona. Do not misread me, Steve Cohen has had a few players at the States and Eric Hick’s Academic Chess group at Blossom Hill always come to USCF tournaments, but they have hundreds of more students who compete only in their local divisions who I know would enjoy the competition and companionship of other skilled players in Northern California.

I am happy to report that we finished the competition on time. I obviously ran short on trophies. Twenty-nine to be exact. Mrs. Ma suggested, bless her constantly working mind, that we hold off giving the trophies to any Wisdom or Weibel winners as I could deliver these personally here in Fremont rather then incurring the expense of mailing. This worked out beautifully since the school breaks allowed Crown Trophy in New York to get the new ones to me to handle out at the first meetings after we returned from the holidays.

Despite being aware I will take up a lot of space listing the winners of all the quads, I beg your indulgence as I believe that they all deserve their name in print. If a “p” appears after the rating it stands for provisional. If a “U” appears in the brackets it means the player does not have a USCF rating. I try to pair unrated players according to their school grade.

Quad #2: Aaron Wilkowski (1189)
Quad #3: Andrey Sovgir (1155 p)
Quad #4: Phil Jouriles (1103), Jeffrey Shih (1087 p)
Quad #5 & 6 were really a Swiss style tournament. Charles Fang (1057) won the first place trophy with three points and Donald Tien (1032) tied Nazee Moghadam (1014) for second place and the remaining trophies.
Quad #7: Saurabh Sanghvi (1029), Stephan Goupille (1111)
Quad #8: Steven Zierk (994)
Quad #9: Ryan Ko (968)
Quad #10: Kiril Kisilyov (967 p)
Quad #11: David Chock (914)
Quad #12: Elliot Sanborn (916 p)
Quad #13: Rahul Subramaniam (912)
Quad #14: Mihir Pendse (901), Brian Chung (886)
Quad #15: Wesley Rou (882)
Quad #16: Diane Wang (866)
Quad #17: Brian Tsui (879)
Quad #18: Alex Lowen (853)
Quad #19: Brian Chao (845)
Quad #20: Pavan Koka (814 p)
Quad #21: Brian Lin (824), Allen Tu (808 p)
Quad #22: Tommy Liu (817)
Quad #23: Kevin Hwa (814), Brian Tsai (796), Stacey Balter (789)
Quad #24: Trevor Carothers (779)
Quad #25: Kimberly Anonuevo (760)
Quad #26: Alex Peyser (754)
Quad #27: Aaron Garg (739)
Quad #28: Ryan McGee (724), Trent Boorman (721)
Quad #29: Kelley Jhong (717)
Quad #30: Akash Pandey (713 p)
Quad #31: Alok Pandey (703 p)
Quad #32: Mahnoosh Moghadam (690)
Quad #33: Spencer Yee (675 p)
Quad #34: Aaron Li (669)
Quad #35: Saggar Khraishi (649 p)
Quad #36: Katherine Wu (653 p)
Quad #37: Salil Babbar (636)
Quad #38: Arnav Shah (625)
Quad #39: Mukund Chillakanti (618 p), Stephen Cunningham-Bryant (617), Geoffrey Chen (615)
Quad #40: Brandon Neal (610)
Quad #41: Teddy Hanson (600)
Quad #42: Iris Kokish (590 p)
Quad #43: James Wilson (566), Margot Boorman (535), Dylan McCarty (531 p)
Quad #44: Julia Herron (516)
Quad #45: Jesal Shah (475)
Quad #46: Kevin Lee (432 p)
Quad #47: Vicky Hwang (400 p), Alexander Liu (406), Kiri Peterson (323)
Quad #48: Evan Chua (U)
Quad #49: Nathan Wang (U), Jayce Sontag (U)
Quad #50: Ramon Qiu (U)
Quad #51: Steven Tsiang (U), Michael Galindo (U)
Quad #52: Christine Chen (U)
Quad #53: Dylan Kim (U)
Quad #54: Michael Wu (U)
Quad #55: Jacob Seibert (U)
Quad #56: Grace Liu (U)
Quad #57: Christian Monteclaro (U), Christian Weeber (U), Joey Conley (U)
Quad #58: Brian Fan (U)
Quad #59: Jacqueline Sloves (U), John-Nathan Monteclaro (U)
Quad #60: Forrest Jensen (U)
Quad #61: Alexander Lun (U), Cory McDowell (U)
Quad #62: Michael Dither (U)
Quad #63: Ashwin Aravind (U), Chars Wagener (U), Michael Shimono (U)
Quad #64: Kevin Zhang (U)
Quad #65: Ryan Jennings (U)
Quad #66: Jan Bruggen (U)
Quad #67: Alice Cheng (U)
Quad #68: Kevin Gan (U)
Quad #69: Kunal Puri (U), Amy Wann (U)
Quad #70: Vivian Lo (U)
Quad #71: Brice Ponteri (U)
Quad #72: William Hsia(U)
Quad #73: Jim Su (U)
Quad #74: Kevin Macario (U)
Quad #75: Buck Dodd (U)
Quad #76: Canaan Linder (U)
Quad #77: Oliver Mausner (U)
Quad #78: William Chen (U)
Quad #79: Griffin Sloves (U)
Quad #80: Christopher Wu (U)
Quad #81: Vir Choksi (605)

December 9, 2001 White: Timothy Ma (1250)
Black: Ewelina Krubnik (1311) Notes by Timothy Ma with a little help from Fritz 6.

1. e4 e5 2. d4 ed 3. c3 dc 4. Bc4 cb 5. Bb2 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Bc3+ 7. Bc3 d5 (Gives the opponent counterplay. Black maintains an advantage with 7 …Nf6 8. e5 Qe7 9. Qe2)
8. Bd5 (I forgot about Bg7!) Nf6 9. Nf3 (Better is 9 Qf3 to avoid the Queen trade if Black plays …c6.) 0-0
10. 0-0 Nd5 (10 . . . c6!? 11 Bf6 Qf6 12. Bb3 is still good for Black.)
11. ed Nd7 12. Re1 Nf6 (Missing 12 …Nb6 13. Qd4 f6 14. Ba5 and Black remains in control of the position.)
13. Bb4 (13. Bf6 Qf6 14. Rc1 Qd6, gives a slight edge for Black.) Re8
14. Re8+ (I tried to clear out the back rank) Qe8
15. Qd3 (To get out the Rook. I should have played 15. Bc3 Qd8 16. Bf6 Qf6) Qe4 (Black would be winning after . . . Bg4 16. Re1 Qd7 17. Re5,)
16. Qb3 (Better is 16. Qe4 Ne5 17 Re1 brings near equality.) Qd5? (What a pity. Victory for Black was in sight: 16…Bg4 17. Rd1 Bf3 18. gf Qg6 19. Kh1 Qf5.)
17.Rd1! (This seemed to shock Ewelina. Any place besides 17. . . Qb5 now results I mate after 18. Rd8.) Qb5
18. Rd8+ Ne8 19. Ng5! (Threatening 20. Qf7 Kh8 21. Qf8 mate or 20. Re8 mate, if her Queen takes my Knight. Fritz 6 said: “A beautiful, forced end to the game.”) Be6 20. Ne6 (This coincidently protects the Rook.) Rd8 21. Nd8(A mate threat at 22. Qf7.) Qd7 22. Nb7 Qc6 (Threatens my Knight and checkmate on c1.)
23. Nc5 (Stronger would have been 23. Qf7! Kf7 24. Nd8 Kf6 25. Nd6 and White makes the point.) a5 24. Ba3 h6 25. h3 Nf6 26. Qa4 Qa4 27. Na4 Kh7 28. Be7 Kg6 29. Nc5 (To play 30. Bd4 Nd5 31. Na6 although 29. NC3 might have been better.) Nd5 30. Bd8 (I gain a Pawn) Nb4 31. Bc7 Na2 32. Ba5 Nc1 33. Kf1! (I noticed that the Knight was trapped so I went after it.) Kf5 34. Ke1 Ke5 35. Kd2 Na2 36. Kc2 Kd4 37. Kb2 Kc5 38. Ka2 (Exchange is good when you are up material.) Kd4 39. Bb6+ (To protect the f2 Pawn.) Kd3 40. Kb3 Ke2 41. Kc4 Kf1 42. g3 Kg2 43. h4 g5 (43. . . . Kf3 would have given some counter play, but Black is lost in any case.) 44. hg hg 45. Kd5 f5 46. Ke5 f4 47. gf gf 48. Kf4 Kh3 49. Kg5 (Black resigns. Ewelina realizes that the Pawn will march forward for a Queen.)
December 2, 2000
I would like to start this month's scholastic newsletter with a special thank you to Allan Fifield, recently retired editor of The CalChess Journal. Allan dedicated numerous issues to scholastics and never published an issue without some scholastic coverage. I must admit that at times he could have checked his spelling a bit more carefully. One cover had Weibel spelled ãWieble,ä and last Winterâs cover with my sonâs photograph for winning the High School Division at the States spelled his name ãMichahä instead of Micah. From my (Alan Kirshner) perspective, since his parents misspelled his name as ãAllan,ä I can forgive the errors.

Allan wanted to retire a year ago from the trying and time-consuming task of editing and producing the Journal. The CalChess board could find no masochistic volunteer for a replacement. Finally, a few months ago, Frisco Del Rosario stepped forward and Allan jumped at the chance to relax with his myriad of other interests. Frisco, I know, will provide as much coverage to scholastic chess. He tutors young players and always volunteers as a director at my tournaments.

On December 9, Saturday, Weibel Elementary School in association with National Chess and Games will hold our first ever Holiday Chess Bazaar. Jay Blem, the owner of National Chess and Games, will load up his truck and transport all flavors of chess goodies from Orange County. So even if you are not planning on competing in the Scholastic Quads that day, stop by between 12 and 6 PM to get the best buys in chess equipment, books and toys in Californiaöcertainly, better then the U.S. Chess Federation prices. Oh, and if you forgot to register for the Weibel Scholastic Chess Quads, there is still time. You can download an application at http://www.kirshnerisms.com/Weibel2.html. The address and directions to the Weibel School are also available at that site for those of you just looking for extra presents at our Holiday Chess Bazaar.

The December 9 Weibel Scholastic Chess Quads will continue the tradition of having around 200 players. A minimum of one out of four players will take home a trophy. In a few cases four out of four winners will occur. In one quad at San Leandro on November 19, the players agreed before they began playing to split the games at 1 1/2 each so they could all obtain trophies. One young man, Îfessed up and his coach wanted him to return the trophy. Agreeing to draws before a tournament or before a game violates all chess rules, and regulations and, I might add, is quite unethical. After checking the quad, I learned that two of the other players were from my team. I need not tell you how much time I spent at our next team meeting explaining to those two and all members of the team that this had better never occur again. Draws are fine. Chess is played for fun, skill, creativity,
critical thinking and the thrill of competitionönot for trophies and rating points. They are just a minor reward for the playerâs accomplishment. I need to underline this last comment for a few parents--especially those that bought their children trophies at the Chess Education Nationals last Spring when they failed to win any. And, to the parents who come up to me and ask to buy one of my trophies to help inspire their child in chessöugh. Bribes work, I have no doubt. But, how about a hug or a nice chess book, a chess CD-ROM or some chess lessons to improve the young playerâs skills. I know that these will be more rewarding, helpful and healthy for the fledgling chess playeröbesides they do not collect as much dust.

Time for a short report on the two CalChess Scholastic Quads held in San Leandro on October 22, and November 19. The October Quads saw 167 players and that number jumped to 190 in November. Parents always compliment the site, and the recreation center people are kind enough to open the whole building to the children and parents as skittles (places to go over the games or play fun games) areas after their other Sunday events are over. I might note that a reason the San Leandro tournaments have been more reasonably priced then most is that the Recreation Department has provided the site free. The only cost is for the trophies, equipment and the tournament directors and helpers.

The San Leandro Recreation Department has offered the Marina Community Center to me as a gratuity for my volunteering to run the Alameda County High School and Junior High School Championships at the Marina Community Center. An asideöthis yearâs county championships will be held on February 25. So if you attend an Alameda County Middle School or a Junior High School or High School, mark your calendar. You can play as an individual or as part of a junior varsity or varsity team. The cost remains $2, and the Recreation Department supplies free snacks. Can you beat that deal? Another reason most parents love the site is because it is convenient. The Marina CC is about half-way between the two largest chess programs in the Bay Area: The Berkeley Chess School of the East Bay and the Success Chess School of the South Bay.

While I would love to write about each quad played at the two tournaments, I know it would take up too much space and time. Therefore, I am only going to list the trophy winners as they definitely deserve their names in print and my kudos:
OCTOBER 22
QUAD #1: Ewelina Krubnick (1269)
QUAD #2: Igor Garbouz (1264), Jamie Brett (1193), Nicolas Yap (1186)
QUAD #3: Erin Harrington (1139) Aaron Wilkowski (1179)
QUAD #4: Edward Chien (1133)
QUAD #5: Darwin Fu (1062), Jeffrey Shih (1061), Shaun Tse (1017)
QUAD #6: Tyler Wilken (980)
QUAD #7: Casandra Lawson (952)
QUAD #8: Robert Connick (942), Roger Tjhia (933)
QUAD #9: Anyon Harrington (917)
QUAD #10: William Connick (906)
QUAD #11: Rahul Subramanian (912), Carrie Ho(905), David Chock(899)
QUAD #12: Alvin Cheng(860), Tatsuro Yamamura(842)
QUAD #13: Brian Lau(821), Jason Chang(797)
QUAD #14: Lucien Kahn(777)
QUAD #15: Jamie Grossman (751), Hansen Tsai (786), Kevin Liu(777)
QUAD #16: Elisha Garg (751)
QUAD #17: Stephen Lee(814)
QUAD #18: Kimberley Anonuevo(715)
QUAD #19: Kyle Hui(707)
QUAD #20: Aaron Garg (699)
QUAD #21: Ara Baghdassarian(691), Eugene Tseng(681), Katherine Wu(653 p)
QUAD #22: Ahir Bala (618 p)
QUAD #23: Devina Brown (561), Steven McLellan (611p), Geoffrey Chen (634)
QUAD #24: Joey Hazani (613p)
QUAD #25: Teddy Hanson(600)
QUAD #26: Adedayo Abioye(554)
QUAD #27: Mukund Chillakanti(594)
QUAD #28: Ning Jeng(543), Omar Harry(522)
QUAD #29: Julia Herron(516p)
QUAD #30: Thomas Tran(473), Kenta Naoi (448), Kevin Lee(432p)
QUAD #31: Eugene Shenker(unr)
QUAD #32: Michael Galindo (unr)
QUAD #33: Christian Weeber(unr)
QUAD #34: Desmond Chee (unr)
QUAD #35: Alexander Lun(unr)
QUAD #36: Kevin Zhang(unr)
QUAD #37: Alice Cheng (unr), Emily Chen (unr)
QUAD #38: Ruby Chen (unr)
QUAD #39: Jonathan Wong (unr), Vivian Lo(unr), Brandon Chen (unr)
QUAD #40: Benjamin Tien(unr)
QUAD #41: William Hsia(unr)
QUAD #42: Joshua Tien(unr)

NOVEMBER 19
QUAD #1: Ewelina Krubnik (1269), Igor Garbouz (1264)
QUAD #2: Edward Chien(1154), Tyronne Plata(1137)
QUAD #3: Andrey Sovgir (1155 p), Joseph Averbukh(1110),Sharon Tseung (1093)
QUAD #4: Phil Jouriles (1103), Darwin Fu(1062), Jeffrey Shih (1062p)
QUAD #5: Daniel Tien(1032), Noah Zachary (996)
QUAD #6: Nazee Moghadam(1014)
QUAD #7: Steven Zierk(984)
QUAD #8: Roger Tjhia(933)
QUAD #9: Rahul; Subramanian(912)
QUAD #10: Ryan Ko(973), David Chock(899)
QUAD #11: Tau Jeng (851)
QUAD #12: Bennett Blazei(865), Alvin Cheng(840)
QUAD #13: Jennifer Fiore(829), Ravi Verma (824)
QUAD #14: Brian Lin(818)
QUAD #15: Stephen Lee(814), Vicente Andrade(762)
QUAD #16: Kevin Hwa(814), Ryan McGee(724p)
QUAD #17: Ayush Kumar(724), Ara Baghdassarian(691)
QUAD #18: Emilia Krubnik(630)
QUAD #19: Mahnoosh Moghadam(690), Alexander Lee(682)
QUAD #20: Kyle Hui(707), Javohn Gibson(681)
QUAD #21: Geoffrey Chen (634)
QUAD #22: Justin Iso(660), Brendan Neal(610), Mark Kokish(606)
QUAD #23: Iris Kokish(590)
QUAD #24: Stephen Liu(645), Anuj Verma(625), Steven McLellan(611p), Avon Manning(558)
QUAD #25: Joey Hazani(613p)
QUAD #26: Teddy Hanson(600)
QUAD #27: Tejas Mulye(491)
QUAD #28: Spencer Yee(624p)
QUAD #29: Ning Jeng(543)
QUAD #30: Dyllan Snavely(536)
QUAD #31: Kartik Chillakanti(496)
QUAD #32: Thomas Tran(473), Kevin Lee(432p), Dustin Chen (unr)
QUAD #33: Eugene Shenker(unr)
QUAD #34: Ramon Que(unr)
QUAD #35: Alison Wu (unr)
QUAD #36: Brian Fan (unr)
QUAD #37: Bradley DeBatista(unr)
QUAD #38: Kevin Zhangf(unr)
QUAD #39: Alice Cheng(unr)
QUAD #40: Kevin Gan(unr)
QUAD #41: Vivian Lo(unr)
QUAD #42: Amy Wann (unr)
QUAD #43: Benjamin Tien(unr)
QUAD #44: Brandon L. Chen (unr)
QUAD #45: Jojay Huyn(unr), Zachary Swinford (unr)
QUAD #46: Jonathan Ting(660)
QUAD #47: Joshua Tien (unr), Griffin Sloves (unr)

At this last quad the most photograph young female chess player again attracted the camera. Sharon Tseung, of Weibel Chess, has probably had her photograph in more newspapers, magazines then any other young chess player in the Bay Area, if not California. She even had a piece done on her on KGO-TV two years ago. Well, this time she received a front page spread in the Fremont Bulletin, a free newspaper delivered to all the homes in this area. A raising star had his first spread with three pictures in the inside story. He is a preschooler, 4 year old, Griffin Sloves, from Wisdom Chess. I must admit I was shocked to see the photo easy. I hate to report how often I have contacted the media for coverage and they never show. However, a protégé of Richard Shorman, the best known chess instructor in the Bay Area, and the official photograph for many chess tournaments including the CalChess State Scholastics, Kevin Batangan, took the photographs and delivered them directly to the press. While I knew Kevin was a great chess instructoröfor he works with Success Chessöand a swim coach at Milpitas High School, I had no idea he was as talented a photographer and PR person. I will keep him around, I hope.

I must admit my eyes are getting tired from typing and I am sure yours are from reading. Let me close off with a few fast notes:
1) Doug Shaker, sent out the applications for the Girlâs Tournament on January 13 and 14 and for the CalChess State Scholastics for March 3 and 4. If you failed to get one in the mail, you can go to our tournament site from http://KidChess.go.cc or http://CalChess.webjump.com/scholastics.html. A reminder to coaches entering teamsöit is $5 cheaper for you players to enter if they provide you with the application to send in by the stated deadline. You can check all ID numbers and indicate the proper division in which they will compete. This I know, from experience, will save the organizers loads of time and confusion. Just remember that if you are entering a club and not a school team, if any school has two other players, despite your listing the player on your club, they must compete for the school team. We will discuss this requirement further at the coaches meeting on March 3.
2) I have decided to hold a kindergarten through third grade chess tournament at Weibel on April 7. This will be a grade level tournament and children will only compete against people in their own grade. This application will be available at all tournaments and is located at http://www.kirshnerisms.com/WeibelPrimary/WeibelGrade.html
(October 14, 2000)
I am not sure how many of you check the Top 50 list by age group every two months, but Northern California does not have a lot of players represented. A few years back when Richard Shorman had his Blue Knights and most topped 1600 by sixth grade and many more parents took their children to adult as well as scholastic tournaments, Northern California players were all over the charts. Today, when California appears next to a name it is usually referring to the Southern California state. Yet, the few players on the Top 50 are way up there. Alexander Setzepfandt, in fifth grade, just moved into second place in the 9 to 10 year old category with a 1776. Drake Wang is fifth in the same age group with a 1746. Daichi Siegrist, at 1567, is in ninth and is also ten years old. Matthew Ho, at 1995, places third in the Top 11 to 12 year-old group. In the "Top Age 15-16" category, International Master Vinay Bhat sits on top with a 2473. David Pruess, who I believe turns 19 this month, is number 3 in the 17 to 18 year old division at 2354. Seventeen year-old Stanford student, Jordy Mont-Reynaud, comes in at the 9 spot with a 2294. I am convinced that there are many more young players in Northern California who could make the top 50 lists. A problem is that they only attend scholastic tournaments and share their rating points with other fine young players. I believe it is time they entered the Open Tournaments as well. Then they could pound on the adults and win some realistic rating points. Go to http://CalChess.usaweb.nu to check out the open matches.

While on the subject of scholastic tournaments, Ray Orwig held the first St. Mark's Quads on October 7 in San Rafael. Ray was kind enough to send me the results. I beg other directors to follow his example.
From Ray:
Here are the results of our first quad of the season. We had a total
of 32 players.
1-Edward Chien (1133) 3-0
2-Bennett Blazei (814) 3-0
3-Arina Semionenkova (809) 2.5-.5
Lucien Kahn (777)
4-Stephen Bauman (735) 2-1
Sam Birer (734)
5-Anna Semionenkova (699) 3-0
6-Brian Shuel (610) 2-1
Alexander Spott (605)
7-Mikund Chillakanti (594) 2-1
Stephen Cunningham-Bryant (602)
Stefan Portale (598)
8-Michael Galindo (Unrated) 3-0
Chessically-----------------Ray

I received, along with other coaches, from Doug Shaker the following information on the 2001 CalChess State Scholastics:

Chess coaches:

Riley Hughes and I (Doug Shaker) are busy trying to organize the CalChess
Scholastics for 2001. We should have more information to you soon, but
we do know the dates - March 3rd and 4th - and the place - Santa Clara
Convention Center.

We will also be running more sections this year than last year. We hope
this will keep us from having huge sections that are difficult to keep
on time and which have no clear first. This also means that we will
we giving out more large trophies for both places and teams. We hope
your players and parents will enjoy this. As of now, the sections
will be:
Kindergarten
K-3 Unrated
K-3 U 600
K-3 Open
K-6 Unrated
K-6 U650
K-6 U850
K-6 Open
K-8 U850
K-8 Open
K-12 U1000
K-12 Open

More later, as the story develops...

I am sure I am forgetting something I intended to write--but, that is all I can think of now. So until next month--keep playing chess and I hope to see many of you at the CalChess Quads in San Leandro on October 22. While you won't see me there, I hope many of you in the area will attend the October 21, 2000 (Saturday) Porterville Chess for Kids, Info: Allan Fifield, E-Mail: allan.fifield@jostens.com and the November 11, 2000 (Saturday) Fresno Chess for Kids, Info: Allan Fifield, E-Mail: allan.fifield@jostens.com
(September 15, 2000)
Yes, I still intend to keep the newsletter going. I have just had a very hectic summer and haven't had the opportunity to do much updating on the web sites except for the tournament schedule. I might add that we have a full schedule this Fall. In a few weeks is the first of three St. Mark's Quads in San Rafael (Oct 7). Their second quads are Nov. 4 and the third on Feb. 3. On Oct. 21, Porterville will have a Chess for Kids Tournament and on Oct. 22 is the first of the San Leandro Quads (the second is Nov. 19). There will be a full scholastic tournament in Sacramento on Dec.2. The Weibel Fall Quads are on Dec. 9. Applications for some of these tournaments are linked on the schedule page.

Among the many things I did this summer (besides taking in too many students in my college courses) was to go to the Denker Tournament of State High School Champions in St. Paul MN with my son Micah. He had a respectable showing winning 2, drawing 2 and losing 1. He came in ranked 18 out of 40 players and finished tied for 10 (13 on tie-breaks). Then we headed East to set him up at the Elliott School of International Relations in Washington, D.C.

The Denker is held in conjunction with the U.S. Open and I was pleased to see as many young players from our area there as adults. I do not have the results to report, however. Sorry! While there I attended the Scholastic meeting and learned much to my dismay that the US Chess Federation will raise the dues of scholastic players ($13 for under 15 from $12 and $20 for under 20 from $17) to help balance their budget. Despite some discounts that will be made available, most of the coaches were, to say the least, displeased.

When they asked who wanted to be on the Scholastic Committee for next year, I gave it some thought. I decided against placing my name in nomination as I figured I had enough on my plate with the new Success Chess School I was working on for this year. A few weeks after returning home I received an e-mail informing me I had been chosen to be on the Committee. I knew I should withdraw my name since I did bot place my name in nomination, but I could not. So I guess I will be heard loud and clear on the national level now. Translation--if you have some concerns you want me to pass on to the USCF Scholastic Committee, just let me know. I cannot guarantee that they will go from there to the USCF Board.

After my June newsletter I heard from Hans Borm down Porterville (Bakersfield) way. He wanted to second Ray Orwig's comments that the National Junior High School Championships in Tuscon were very well run. His Bartlett JHS took a 12th place. He stopped off with his players on the way home at the Grand Canyon. He wrote: "Although we did not win, I did not throw any of our team off the edge as I threatened. I'm just an old softie! " His team had a great year winning 16 of the 18 tournaments they entered.

The number of players attending theWeibel Summer Scholastic Quadswas about equal to last year. I believe we had 216 in the first, 228 in the second and 179 in the third. I never sent out an e-mail reminder on the third as I was in Minnesota with the Denker. I hoped it would be small, as I returned at 11:30 PM the night before and knew that I would have to enter at least 60 new players.

I will update the Top 50 on the Age Lists as soon as I get the October Supplement. The October ratings are posted at the USCF site, but they still have August's Top 50 list as the most recent.

Coaches, players, parents--please remember that if you have any news to share, please (pretty please) send it to me at CalChessScholastics@kirshnerisms.com.

(June 3, 2000)
I am a little late with the May newsletter. I have just finished grading 200 essay exams and turning in the final results. Now I have time to write my own essay.

Scholastic Chess in Northern California will see its most active summer ever. Numerous individuals and groups are running summer chess camps and classes. Our tournament schedule is packed. On June 24 will be the first of three Weibel Quads (6/24, 7/22, 8/12). Berkeley Chess will hold the last of this year's quads on July 9. On July 15, the Hayward Library has its annual scholastic chess tournament. On August 19, the Sacrament Chess club will hold a summer scholastic. Even if you cannot participate in any of these events, I hope you will spend the summer studying and playing chess so you are prepared for the next school chess year.

Since this site is used by the Northern California affiliate of the United States Chess Federation, I did not feel it appropriate to write much about the breakaway Chess Education Association's Nationals in San Jose before it took place at the end of April. However, since the fledgling organization held their inaugural tournament in our area, I must say a few words. Over 500 players arrived from 16 states, albeit, most from California. The tournament ran smoothly thanks to Richard Peterson's many years of organizing experience. The only criticism that I heard dealt with the lack of space for parents and teams. Well, a few parents and coaches said the trophies were too large--the kids loved them. Our CalChess players shined. International Master Vinay Bhat (2475) of San Jose tied with Harry Akopyan (2314) of Southern California for first place in the High School Division. Lynbrook High School (San Jose) won the High School Team Championship. Bartlett Middle School of Porterville, which is in Northern Cal, won the Junior High School Team Championship. Matthew Ho (1917) of Cupertino won the Elementary School Championship and Weibel Elementary School (Fremont) took the team championship. Ryan Dooley (973) of Berkeley became the Elementary Premier champion. In the Primary School Championship, Weibel Elementary School (Fremont) finished in first place. Corey Chang of Mountain View won the Primary Premier Section, and Argonaut School (Saratoga) topped off a great second year as a team by winning a national championship. I must admit I am disappointed that the full results were not posted at the CEA'sChess Logic web site. However, the CEA ratings achieved during this tournament are there. I know that the CEA kept its promise to mail the bonds to the various place winner as my son's arrived in a few short weeks. Just one final note, The Chess Education Association honored yours truly, Alan Kirshner, as their national chess coach of the year.

Back to the US Chess Federation: I recently received an e-mail from Ray Orwig, coach of the St. Mark's School team. He took a team to Junior High Nationals in Tucson, Arizona on May 5-7. He reported that the tournament had around 1100 players and that the facility was first-rate with lots of room, both for the players and the folks in waiting. His team finished ninth of 43, a solid performance at this prestigious event. Ray was proudest, however, of the fact that this was the 6th time they placed in the top 10 at the Nationals since 1989 and his players come from such a small school. If any of you know of any other teams or individuals who attended any of the US Chess Federation Nationals this year, I would appreciate your sending me information.

On May 27, Charlotte Wood Middle School (Danville) held its first ever scholastic quads under the very able direction of Dennis Alfaro, MD. One hundred and twenty-eight players attended. This was a phenomenal turn-out for a Memorial Day weekend. A good part of the reason for the large number of players was that Dr. Alfaro did a great job in advertising the event--lots of e-mails and he placed applications at every scholastic event in the area. Things ran very smoothly, and I am sure that Dr. Alfaro, boosted by his success, will have more chess events eventually.

(April 22, 2000)
As most of you read above, the CalChess States have come and gone. My article on the tournament will appear in the next edition of the California Chess Journal. Many scholastic players voluntarily joined CalChess when they entered the tournament and should receive their first copy of the Journal soon. However, for those of you who do not get the California Chess Journal, a preview of the article is at http://CalChess.webjump.com/Our25th.html.

Jay Stallings, organizer, sent a few of the results from the California Grade Level, held in Santa Clarita on April 15. Not surprising, only a few of Northern California's players seem to have entered. We didn't receive notice of the change of date of the tournament until a few weeks before the new schedule. It was only one week after our States and two weeks before the Saitek Nationals in San Jose. In the third grade section Corey Chang of Nueva and the Berkeley Chess School tied for second. The fourth grade students at the Berkeley Chess School left little doubt of their superiority. Daichi Siegrist won all his games and Philip Jouriles and Gabe Gordon drew one game (wouldn't surprise me if it was against each other) and tied for second. Jonathan Jew of Mission San Jose, who was a co-champion in the our K-6 under 750 Division, could only muster a tie for seventh place in the fifth grade section. Aaron Wilkowski, from the Berkeley Chess School, tied for fifth place in the sixth grade section. Keith Yost, of the Fresno Chess Academy, placed second in the eighth grade section.

Looking at the results it is quite obvious that the Armenian Club is the strongest group of chess players in Southern California. I hope they will send some of their players up to compete in next year's States. One thing that is bothersome is that Alen Melikadamian, who competed for Chess for Juniors at our States the week before, was a member in Santa Clarita of the Armenian Club. Elizabeth Shaughnessy and I discussed setting some rules for clubs for next years States. I think this will be one of my missions this next year as CalChess Scholastic Chair.
(March 7, 2000)
I have just learned that the date for this year's California Grade Level Championships in Southern California has been changed from April 22 to April 15. I guess Jay Stallin's the organizer wanted to avoid the Easter weekend and figured he didn't have to worry as much about the parents who waited to the last minute to complete their income tax. I mean after-all parents of chess players are obviously better organized. :0) I asked Jay to send me an application so I can post it on our site.

I also received some information about next year's Grade Level Championships that will be back in Northern California. Dr. William McDonald, last year's organizer in Stockton wrote:

Yes we are definitely hosting the tournament again next year. With this much
planning etc. it's my hope to improve it. First of all we plan to GIVE the
t-shirts with the registration (no increase in fees) by adding sponsorships.
Secondly, we should be able to do lunch both days.
We sponsored a couple of tournaments and school clubs in Stockton this year
with the money we made last year. We added a couple of schools with 30 to 70
kids in each club.

I doubt there is any other organizer in the state and maybe the country that can run a scholastic chess tournament for a modest entry fee and provide large trophies, free lunches, free T-shirts and still have a profit left over to organize chess in inner city schools. I sent Dr. McDonald a couple of dates in April, 2001 to take to the North Stockton Rotary Club.

I can inform you at this time that Doug Shaker has made arrangements with the Santa Clara Convention Center for the 2001 CalChess State Scholastic Championships. He will hold them the first weekend in March as that was one of the few times when they could locate the 50,000 + square feet of space we use to house our 1000 players and their parents.

The San Leandro Recreation Department and Bishop O'Dowd High School sponsored the third annual Alameda County High School Championships, and the first annual Middle School Championships on February 27. The number of players was disappointing. However, the all but a few of the top rated High School players in Alameda County attended. Many draws ensued, probably because the 30 minute time limit was much too short for the quality of play. Micah Fisher-Kirshner (Mission San Jose High School) walked home with the first place plaque, but the championship produced a five way tie with Kris MacLennan (Skyline High School)in second place, Nathan Lee (Chinese Christian School), third, Jocelyn Lee (Chinese Christian School), fourth and Jimmy Lee (Oakland High School), fifth. The Chinese Christian School edged out Berkeley High School for the first place team with Oakland High School just a half point behind.

In the Junior Varsity High School division the Christian Chinese School walked home not only with the team trophy, but their players took the three top positions: Otto Chiu, Samson Ng and Ronald Chin. The Christian Chinese School made it a clean sweep by winning the Middle School title as well. Aaron Wilkowski (Beacon School) took the individual title with Joscelyn Daguna (Chinese Christian) as first runner-up and Noah Youngs (East Bay Science and Art) as second runner-up.

One note from my home front: This Sunday, Weibel Chess hosted the Berkeley Bishops for our sixth annual head to head competition. This year Elizabeth Shaughnessy, director of the Berkeley Chess School that runs about 90 school chess programs, brought 33 of her elite players to Fremont. Last year we went to Berkeley. In the first two years of the competition, Weibel won fairly decisively. The Bishops took the next three years of matches after being down a few points after the first games to rally to victory in the second round--each player competes death against the same opponent with black and white. Well, this year I bribed my players with an ice-cream party and told them that they would all get trophies if we maintained or did better in the second round. The "incentives" seemed to work--Weibel won 40 1/2 to 25 1/2 and actually picked up 1/2 a point in the second round. I know this friendly, but serious competition, will propel both these teams to great success at the States. The Bishops in the last few years have won numerous Club trophies at the states and Weibel has done the same in the school team competition.

One final note: With one month to go, the entries for the CalChess Scholastic Championships has now topped 200--about equal to last year.

(February 20, 2000)
The number of players at recent quads has exploded. The Berkeley Quads on January 30 obtained 80 players. The St. Marks Quads on February 13 had 92 players. Both tournaments have about doubled their numbers from their previous quads. I do not know whether the e-mails I have been sending people to remind them of the quads has helped, but I hope so. The one problem for the directors has been the large number of late registrations. I am sure Ray Orwig and Elizabeth Shaughnessy would forsake the minimal late fee to have almost all the registrations in on time.

I recently learned that the Santa Clara County High School Championships held its 30th anniversary match on February 12 & 13. This has got to be the longest lasting scholastic tournament in California. The Northern California State Championships is celebrating its 25th anniversary competition on April 7 through 9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

From what I can gather a former Camden High School teacher, John Marks, organized the Santa Clara County High School Chess Tournament in 1971. He was honored posthumously in 1989 when a perpetual cup to the winning team was named after him.

Lynbrook High School hosted the 30th Annual Santa Clara County High School Chess Championships and was the winner, as well, of the "John Marks Perpetual Trophy." The members of the Lynbrook Team were Vinay Bhat, Ernest Huang, Daniel Scherbakovsky, Philipp Perepelitsky and Aaron Blavin. Bellarmine College Preparatory took second with Gunderson High School finishing third.

Steve Smallwood of Wilcox High School organized the tournament with Riley Hughes as the director. They drew 57 participents. Vinay Bhat obtained 5 points to become the individual winner. Apparently the next places are determined according to grade level with Senior winner Ben Hsieh (Los Altos), Junior winner Dan Nguyen (Wilcox), Sophomore winner Prashant Periwal(Westmont) and Freshman winner Huy Ly Nguyen (Gunderson).

Wilcox High School hosted the Northern Santa Clara Valley Chess League on January 29--I guess as a warm-up for the 30th Annual Championships. There were 42 players with Vinay Bhat(Lynbrook) winning the A Division, Chris Kimma(Bellarmine) taking the B Division and William Chang(Lynbrook) the top place in the C Division. Lynbrook, at this tournament, was awarded the first place trophy in the Santa Clara Valley Chess League competition. Los Altos High School placed second. The League consists of seven teams--Lynbrook, Los Altos, Wilcox, Santa Clara, Westmont, St. Francis and Cupertino. These High Schools played a double round robin for a total of 12 matches from October through January. Steve Smallwood, coach of Wilcox, reports that the chess league and this individual tournament has been in existence since "at least 1969 when I started teaching at Wilcox High and started a chess club." The League has varied in the number of High Schools over the year but is very much alive and active.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate all the teachers and coaches who have been willing to keep chess active and exciting in Santa Clara County. The records I received on the Santa Clara County High School Tournament only go back to 1981. I realize that for many of you the names from the past are not very meaningful. I, however, would like to honor these individuals and leave a permanent record on the internet for future generations:
1981
Gunn HS (1st)
Independence HS (2nd)
Palo Alto HS (3rd)

Todd Walker(Independence) Individual Champion

1982
Palo Alto
Gunn
Overfelt

Jose Marcal(Palo Alto) & Kevin Binkley(Monta Vista) Individual Champions

1983
Gunn
Gunderson
Independence

Kevin Binkley(Monta Vista) Individual Champion

1984
Bellarmine
Gunn
Independence

Individual Champion Unknown

1985
Bellarmine
Gunderson
Independence

Individual Champion Unknown

1986
Bellarmine
Independence
Gunderson

Sean Mulligan(Live Oak) Individual Champion

1987
Bellarmine
Live Oak
Gunderson

Segguv Weiss(Palo Alto) Individual Champion

1988
Bellarmine
Fremont
Independence

Nathan Akamine(Gunderson) Individual Champion

1989
Bellarmine
Independence
Live Oak

Michael Chan(Bellarmine) Individual Champion

1990
Bellarmine
Live Oak
Gunderson

Karel Baloun(Bellarmine) Individual Champion

1991
Independence
Live Oak
Bellarmine

Alan Stein(Mt. View) Individual Champion

1992
Independence
Bellarmine
St. Francis

Edgington Watt(St. Francis) Individual Champion

1993
Independence
Bellarmine
Gunderson

Harish Bhat(Lynbrook) Individual Champion

1994
Bellarmine
Los Altos
Lynbrook

Vy Tan Nguyen(Wilcox) Individual Champion

1995
Lynbrook
Los Altos
Bellarmine

Harish Bhat(Lynbrook) Individual Champion

1996
Los Altos
Leigh
Lynbrook

Harish Bhat(Lynbrook) Individual Champion

1997
Cupertino
Gunn
Leigh

Anthony Rozernvasser(Cupertino) Individual Champion

1998
Bellarmine
Cupertino
Los Altos

Alexander Lam(Los Altos) Individual Champion

1999
Lynbrook
Bellarmine
Los Altos

Vinay Bhat(Lynbrook) Individual Champion

2000
Lynbrook
Bellarmine
Gunderson

Vinay Bhat(Lynbrook) Individual Champion

(January 10, 2000)
I know it is unusual for me to write two newsletters in one month, but I felt a question asked of me at the girls tournament this weekend deserved clarification. A parent wanted to know how the grade level trophies differed from the 25 places in each section and if that mean that a child could win two trophies. Boy, was I happy he asked the question. I hit my head. Last week I thought I had ordered all the trophies. I suddenly realized I forgot the grade level awards. Ugh! Guess what I did today? By the way, just another side note: last year I awarded 267 prizes. This year there will be 394 awards. I do intend to make this 25th anniversary of the CalChess Scholastic Championships memorable.

To the question on the differences between the awards: I follow the tradition at the national scholastic championships. I award the first 25 places first and possibly trophies for 26 down if players score the same as the 25th place winner. This could mean as many as 40 trophies in a division for place winners. Then I award the grade level to the highest place in a specific grade that did not win a trophy. After the grade level trophies are awarded, I will give medals to the best score in rating groups that did not win a trophy. This becomes complicated. If a medal is to be given to the best score for under a 1000 rating it could actually be won by someone with a 600 rating. The next medal might be for the best score under 900. Well, a person with a 950 who lost out on the best under 1000 to a 600 rated player would not be eligible for the best under 900. I hope this helps. I am afraid I might have confused you even more. Sorry if I have.

I just received the word that because of the recent resignation of the U.S. Chess Federation's Scholastic Director that there will not be a Chess in Education workshop at our State Championships. I'll work on scheduling something else in that time slot.

As long as I am writing a second newsletter this month, I would like to take a little space to compliment Doug Shaker on the outstanding job he did in running the Sojourner Truth All Girls Tournament. Over 130 girls participated, with one young lady coming from Texas and 29 from Washington. His concern that the children enjoy and have fun in chess makes me feel secure that when he and Riley Hughes produce the 2001 Calchess Scholastic Championships it will continue to be one of the finest state scholastics in the country.

(January 2, 2000)
Well this web site has survived the Y2K bug, but not my tinkering. I changed the title logo to the one that will appear on the T-shirts for the CalChess State Championships. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Alvin (Budd) Setzepfandt for designing the basic logo. The concept of the coin originally came from Frisco Del Rosario. I did the lettering. As usual, every aspect of this tournament is a team effort.

This logo will be in silver puff paint on either a black or white shirt--your choice. The only problem is that I didn't decide on providing a choice until after the applications were printed. Therefore, if you want a black short or long sleeve T-shirt, please write that in on your order form. The applications will be in the mail in the next few days. I know that some of you have already obtained one at a recent tournament. I will also have some available at the girl's tournament in Menlo Park on Saturday and Sunday, January 8 and 9. I understand from Doug Shaker, the organizer, that he already has 120 entries with 29 coming from Washington State.

Some people have asked about the ratings that we will use at the States. We will follow the Nationals and use the February Rating Supplement. The US Chess Federation does not list a rating in the Supplement unless they have rated at least four games. So, even if the child has played in more then four games, but they have not been rated by January 3 (the deadline for the February Supplement), he or she can play as unrated. We will have updated ratings on many players after the February Supplement from online weekly postings as long as this does not change the division they are eligible to play in or impact their opportunity to win a rating award.

The Weibel Quads on December 11 pulled 172 players. Interestingly, at least half of the players were unrated. While I sent in the tournament report in the required seven days, I have not received any ratings. In fact, the ratings from the November 14 Calchess Scholastic Quads just arrived Friday. I do not know, therefore, whether the ratings from the Weibel Quads will appear in the February Ratings Supplement.

(December 5, 1999)
162 players showed to the Cal Chess Quads in San Leandro. Everyone loved the site. I hope we can have a few more tourneys there as it is half way between the two Nor Cal powerhouses--Fremont & Berkeley. I haven't received a report on the two San Rafael(St. Marks) tournaments too date.

We have a couple of new people on the Top 50 lists: On the 8 & Under list is Ben Laufer (age 8) from Nixon in Palo Alto. On the 10 & Under list is Daichi Siegrist (age 9) from the Berkeley Chess School along with team mate Ewelina Krubnik (age10). On the 12 & Under girls is Sharon Tseung (age 9) from Weibel in Fremont.

Drake Wang(age 10) from San Francisco is moving up the 10 & under list with a 1590 rating & 8th place one place ahead of Alexander Setzepfandt(age 9) who study & continuous tournament play is really paying off with a 1573 rating.

Fifteen year old Vinay Bhat tied for first at LERA & is 2417 & 2nd on the 16 & under list.

From Hans Borm:
Bartlett Middle School is very proud of its chess club this year. After participating in 13 tournaments last year including the Norcals and the National Junior High in Columbus,6th and 22nd in U1000, they have participated in 7 tournaments already this year. Teamwise they have recieved 5 first places and a second place at the all american cup national quick chess scholastic in scottsdale,arizona behind national powerhouse,Taos, New Mexico by one point. Individually Stephen Ho has 4 first places, 2 second places and a tie for seventh place in the all american cup with among others our own Keith Yost,Cory Evans,Alen Melikadamyan, and Jared Hecht. Michael Edes has recieved 2 second places and numerous other high finishes for a 750 rated player. Ahana Sandhu ,rated 530 recently, has climbed to over 800 with some great wins over higher rated players,i.e.1200. Ronnie Jeffries,Tyler Yazzie,Randall Steen,Kyle Koop,Jacob Catalina,Juan Andrade,Joseph Zimmerman,and Alex Saldana have also been a big part of our success this year and have steadily improved their ratings and their game. We are all looking forward to the Norcals in Santa Clara, the Nationals in Tucson and the grade level championship in Santa Clarita. We hope to see many more participants at these events and others because after 22 years of competing we truly know the fun,cameradie,competition and wealth of memories that come from being a part of scholastic chess ,especially in norcal. Thanks Hans Borm.
(October 30, 1999)
Happy Halloween!
As you may have noted above the application for the 25th Anniversary CalChess State Scholastics is now posted. We have made many additions that I hope will excite all our participants. Lets start with the biggie--more trophies. In previous years we have given trophies to 15th place. This year we are going down to 25th place in each division for individual trophies. There will be trophies for each grade-level in each section this year along with medals for rating groups. Please remember you can only win one trophy so after the first 25 are award (with tie-break awards beyond 25--maybe to 35), the grade-level and rating group awards will follow. We have also increased the number of school team trophies from five to eight in each section, excluding kindergarten. Note: All kindergarten players will receive a trophy regardless of their placing. Club trophies are increased from one to two. We are adding a bughouse tournament to go along with our usual speed chess on Friday night. Sadly, players will have to choose between the two Friday night tournaments. We also may need to limit the bughouse to 40 teams.

A minimum of 350 trophies will be awarded and when you count the medals for the four players on the top teams, we will be awarding a minimum of 125 medals.

We have added a new section this year: a high school junior varsity section which will be for any player under a 950 rating and unrated. This means that only kindergarten will have one section. K-3, K-6, K-8, & K-12 will have two divisions a championship (open to any player up to the maximum grade indicated) and a junior varsity (under a specific rating and unrated).

As we did last year, we will sell commemorative chess boards and chess sets at $5 each. This year, of course, the boards will be 25th Anniversary Specials. And, to please those that made the request last year, we will have available a long sleeve T-shirt as well as our regular T-shirts.

For coaches and parents, we have created some special workshops. These will be free (at least at this writing--there may be a minimal charge for the Chess in Education Workshop as we will be bringing people in from other parts of the country and there will be a binder of information distributed).

Last, but not least, the free commemorative pin will be larger this year

We hope to see you there on April 7 through 9.

(September 21, 1999)
Lots of quads coming up: Berkeley, San Rafael, Fremont. Check the scholastic tournament page.

The last Weibel Summer Quads had 218 players. I am happy I reserved the Library as well as the multi-purpose room at the school just in case.

I have begun a new chess program structured after Weibel Chess at the Wisdom Chinese Cultural Center in Fremont. I am not sure exactly why I decided to give in to the pressure, but I did. Richard Shorman will work with the Wisdom Chess Team on Monday's after 3:15 and I will instruct the Wisdom Chess Club on Wednesday's from 3:15 to 4:15. The program is open to any scholastic player. You can find information at: http://WisdomChessClub.usaweb.nu.
(July 28, 1999)
Tomorrow I leave on vacation and will return just in time for the Weibel Quads#3 (August 14). I thought I would update you on some of this summer happenings now. I do not want anything hanging over my head while I am gone.

I just heard that our new Cadet Tournament Champion is Jordy Mont-Reynaud (2327). The Cadet Championship is an invitational event for young chess players under 16--the best in the United States. As many of you know Jordy received his Master's title at the age of 10 1/2--shattering the former record. Bobby Fischer obtained his Master's rating at 14. A year later, Northern California's Vinay Bhat out did Jordy by one month. The record has returned to the east coast with a transplanted former West Coast resident--Hikaru Nakamura--who last year at the age of 10 obtained his Master's rating.

Jordy has also consented to be the first scholastic representive to the CalChess Board. CalChess, the Northern California, affiliate to the US Chess Federation, may be the first state organization to reserve a seat on it's governing board for a scholastic player. This position is an advisory one. If you are a scholastic player and would like your representative--Jordy--to introduce something or discuss some issue of concern to scholastic chess at the next CalChess Board meeting, please contact him at:jordymr@aol.com.

The first two Weibel Summer Quads were booming successes. The first quad on June 26th drew 201 players. The second match on July 10th had 176 players. I had ordered trophies for the three quads at the beginning of the summer. Because of the increased number of players and the numerous multi-trophy winners in many of the quads (I think I had at least seven where all four players won trophies--1 1/2 points each--and 15 with three winners--2 points each--I had to order more trophies. I ordered 65 for the August 14th quads. I hope they are enough. Players who ordered the special T-shirt will receive them that day. Oh, and all players who failed to win one trophy after attending all three quads will get a medal. A special bonus at this last quad on August 14th--a ten dollar off coupon for a purchase at The Athlete's Foot store will be available to all participants. I do not know if they sell a special chess shoe.

The Hayward Library Tournament on July 24th also had a record number of participants. The Hayward Library Tournament is a free non-US Chess Federation tournament. About 100 players participated in this quick chess match. A few years ago, Ray Orwig of St. Mark's in San Rafael, whose wife is a children's librarian at the Fremont Public Library, did a series of free library tournaments in Alameda County. A number of our successful young players started out in these competitions including Jordy Mont-Reynaud and my son Micah who, although not playing much lately, did obtain an Expert rating. The Hayward Library Tournament is the only one of these competitions remaining. It is a city library and not part of the Alameda Library system and so they have funding no longer available to the Alameda Library system.

Ray Orwig will run four scholastic quads this school year--two in the Fall and two in the Winter. I will have the exact dates and an application posted on our tournament site as soon as I receive them.

Some general information:
I am giving up my hooked.net site. You can view the scholastic site--if you have not been doing so already--at http://calchess.webjump.com/scholastics.html. I have mirrored the site at my new location: http://www.kirshnerisms.com/scholastics.html. You can avoid the banner advertising on the webjump site by heading to it via http://CalChessScholastics.usaweb.nu. You will get a page that has advertising for 10 seconds, but you can click on the link immediately and miss the ad. Weibel Chess, also housed at webjump, can be accessed in a similar fashion: http://WeibelChess.usaweb.nu

You can e-mail me a number of ways:
hegemon@kirshnerisms.com
CalChessScholastics@kirshnerisms.com
WeibelChess@kirshnerisms.com

This fall may see a new club and team after school program emerging in Fremont at the Wisdom Chinese Cultural Center. Keep checking at http://WisdomChess.usaweb.nu for further information.

(June 19, 1999)
I apologize for not keeping you up on the news--yes, there has been some news. I just got busy with the California Chess State Scholastic Championships and then a thousand other little things--no real excuse. You can read my article on that competition by clicking on the title of the tournament above. I have secured the date for next year--April 8 and 9, 2000. Since I was able to obtain two free rooms at the Convention Center for Friday night April 7th, I have decided to continue the Blitz Tournament despite the small attendance the last two years. I am seriously considering adding a Bughouse Tournament that night. I realize some people would like to play in both, but because of time constraints they will have to make a choice. The purpose of these events is for the players to have a bit of fun warming up for the main event.

I have spent a number of weeks perfecting a Weibel Chess Club website (http://WeibelChess.webjump.com). This site isn't just for Weibel players. I think I have added lots of valuable information including a page with numerous articles I scanned that discusses how chess improves academic performance. I invite you to check it out and welcome your feedback and suggestions.

The California Chess State Grade Level Championships, May 15 & 16 in Stockton, saw 260 players compete. The North Stockton Rotary Club members and the rest of the volunteers did an outstanding job. Once again they provided great awards and a free snacks on Saturday and a free lunch for everyone on Sunday. The next issue of the CalChess Journal should have an article by the Chief TD, John McCumiskey on the event.

Speaking about free--don't forget the Hayward Library Scholastic on July 24th. It is so nice when you can find organizations willing to cover the costs of the awards and the location. I can't even do that at Weibel. However, the San Leandro Recreation Department is providing CalChess Scholastics with free use of the Marina Community center on Sunday, November 21. This should allow us to provide a low entry fee. As has been our practice, there will be a discount for CalChess members.

Please remember that while US Chess Federation membership is required at all rated tournaments, players do not have to join CalChess. You are not automatically a member of CalChess if you join the US Chess Federation. There is an extra $13 charge for scholastic players or $17 for families. If you play in a few tournaments each year you will have that cost covered and receive the award winning California Chess Journal free.

(February 28, 1999)
Deja Vu! Today was the annual Berkeley Bishops vs. Weibel Elementary School chess competition. If you want to know what happened, read aboutlast year's tournament. Unreal! The only differences--this year the tournament was held in Berkeley at the Hillside School instead of Weibel in Fremont and we contested 25 board instead of 29(each individual again played a game with white and with black). After the first round the Weibel Knights were ahead by one point, just like last year, and they seemed on a roll to an easy victory when the first games of the second round were reported. However, the Berkeley Bishops rallied to win by 3 points--261/2 to 23 1/2. Both sides can cry over games that were "should-a-won." The upper Boards generally split their games, for example on Board #1 Alex Setzepfandt (1300--Bishops) defeated Alex Tseung (1147--Knights) the first round and Alex Tseung won the second game. The reverse occurred on board #2. Timothy Ma (1070--Knights) defeated Wesley Chen (1295--Bishops) first round and lost in the second game.

I could say wait until next year. But, I must admit some trepidation. The Berkeley Bishops are a very young team with lots of strong third grade players. My players are older, but most will return next year. The Bishops draw from the elite of 80 schools under the Berkeley Chess School(students from16 different schools made up their team), but many of them attend lots of tournaments during the year. The Weibel players mainly compete at the Chess Team meetings at their elementary school. I know both groups receive excellent training, but the tournament expereince of the Bishops is a big plus. Maybe, I can force the Weibel players to go to more tournaments. Oh well, wait until next year anyway--whomever wins, this is an exciting competition and a great preparation for the States at the end of March.

(February 20, 1999)
How often do you pay a $2 entry fee for a chess tournament? How often do you get bagels, cream cheese, drinks and cookies at that same tournament? Well that happened today at the Alameda County High School Chess Championships. Besides the bargain price, the chess was excellent in both the varsity and junior varsity divisions. Kudos to the San Leandro Recreation Department for a job well done. I'll do a full report for the CalChess Journal. For now, please congratulate our winners:
Varsity Division Individual--Andy Lee and Andrew Fan(both from Berkeley High School) tied with 4.5 points for first place. Varsity Division Team--Berkeley High School. Junior Varsity Division Individual--Nathan Lee (Christian Chinese School of San Leandro). Junior Varsity Division Team-- Oakland High School and Chinese Christian School are co-champions.







The Alameda County High School Champions, 1999:
Andy Lee and Andrew Fan






photo by Richard Shorman

(February 15, 1999)
I just returned from the Young People's Tournament. This competition has been held for many years at the University of California, Berkeley. Some changes in this years format improved the tournament, but raised some new problems that the directors said they would work on for next year.

The YPT use to stop at 14 and had age group trophies--very few. This year's competition created two sections for K-6 and 7-12. While the number of trophies increased it became obvious that more were needed and new divisions as well when there was a five way tie for first place in the K-6 section that had 77 entries. Of course, the first change for next year would be to add a fifth round and reduce the time controls to SD/30. The 7-12 section had atwo way tie for first place. I failed to get the results for this section, so I am not sure of the exact number of players, but I believe it was 16.

In the 7-12 section the Lonsdale brothers tied for first with the older Lonsdale (Joe Jr--11th grade) defeating Jonathan (9th grade) on tie breaks. Since 1994, a blitz play-off had been used to determine who got the larger trophy. Bonnie Yost, the Chief TD--and I might add that she did a beautiful and efficient job--decided against a blitz playoff. She felt it was a different form of chess and less fair than the tie-breaks. My youngest son Tov would have loved to hear that. In 1994, the first year the blitz was used, he tied with his older brother for first and would have won on tie-breaks, but . . . I might add that both sets of brothers I just mentioned attend Mission San Jose High School in Fremont.

Alexander Tseung from Weibel Elementary School won the first place trophy in the K-6 division on tie breaks. Alex who is rated1157 upset the top seeded Daniel Schwarz(1400) from Sacramento in the last round. Wesley Chen from the Berkeley Chess School took second and Alexander Setzepfandt also from the Berkeley Chess School obtained the third place trophy.

Weibel Elementary School (20) and the Berkeley Chess Club (22) produced more than half the playersfor this tournament. These two chess powerhouses will meet for the sixth straight year on February 28 to contest 25 boards.

The other two players with perfect scores were Daichi Siegrist, Berkeley Chess School, and Byron Becker, Corrales' All-Stars. Since both of these playersare in third grade they took home first and second place trophies respectively in that grade division.`


(February 2, 1999)
I have been waiting for a report about the first all girl's tournament in Northern Cailfornia. I do know that on January 9 & 10, over 100 girls contested each grade level in Palo Alto. As soon as I get the official details, I will post them.

I hoped you noticed that there is a link to all current entries to the CalChess State Scholastic Championships. I will have different colored chess boards for each section of the Championships this year. The commerative boards and chess setswill be sold for $5 each at the end of the tournament.

Vinay Bhat is number one in the country for his age group and has a posted Senior Masters rating (2423). Not bad for a 14 year old.

If you went to the tournament website you noticed that the Weibel Summer Quads will take place on June 26, July 10 and August 14.
(December 13, 1998)
Wow, we did it again--broke another record!. The Weibel Quads on December12 pulled 149 players. We actually had to find more tables when 25+ people registered late. Perhaps the best element of the competition was the very large number of brand new players. They did very well and we didn't see one game with the Kings next to each other. The Berkeley Quads last month, in their first outing, had almost 80 players. This bodes well for the State championship at the end of March.

Applications for the State Championship will be in the mail before January 10--that is when the postal rates increase.

As I indicated earlier, the California Grade Level Championships will be held in Stockton on May 15 & 16. I noted that this was in conflict with the National Elementary School Championships. I felt I had no choice but to accept the bid of the North Stockton Rotary Club as this was the only date they had available. Sadly, but understandably, Southern California has withdrawn its support this year from this Championship. We have changed the name to California Chess State Grade Level Championships to reflect the sponsorship of the northern state alone. Northern California's official state name is California Chess. Everything else will remain thesame. Maybe not--there is some discussion of adding the High School grades. Stockton wants to see how well their district wide chess championship, January 23, pulls from the High Schools.

The Alameda County High School Championship is scheduled for February 25 in San Leandro. I will post more details when I receive them.

I haven't received any information on the Santa Clara County High School Championships too date.

For the first time, to my knowledge, there will be a Bay Area Collegiate Championship at Ohlone College on January 30 & 31. Hans Poschmann is running this event along with a Bay Area Tourney.

I will get the Top 50 list updated during the holidays.(DONE!) Meanwhile, have a great holiday season.

(October 27, 1998)
Matthew Ho has been selected as one of the US representatives for 1998 FIDE World Youth Chess Championships. The Championship takes place in Ciudad de Vacaciones de Marina d'Or in Castellon, Spain, from October 24 to November 7, 1998. There is a web site http://www.feda.org which has more information of this event. Congratulations to this 5th grader from San Jose who has been near the top of the USCF's Top 50 List for his age group for as long as I can remember.


(October 20, 1998)
I just received news via Tom Dorsch that the female who places highest in our CalChess Scholastics can attend the brand new Fan Adams Tournament of High School Woman Champions. This will be held at the same time and at the same place as the Denker Tournament of High School Champions. While CalChess doesn't provide a lot of funds, in recent years it has donated $200 to cover the costs of the individual attending the Denker.

The CalChess Board moved to raise the dues to $15 for Open Membership & $13 for Scholastic Membership after January 1, 1999. The reason was quite simple--it was costing $16 a year to produce the CalChess Journal. Other sources of revenue and new memberships should cover the $1 loss that is still expected. So, join now, while the Scholastic Membership is still $10. Remember that even w/o the magazine you obtain a $2 discount at many scholastic tournaments and $5 at most open tournaments.

Anthony Corrales, who is coaching a number of schools in San Francisco and the Peninsula, would like to get a Scholastic Chess League going. Any interested takers besides weibel Elementary School?


(October 10, 1998)
The California Grade Level Chess Championship will be in Stockton on May 15 and 16, 1999. A Stockton Rotary Club and Delta College will sponsor the event at Delta College. While we would have liked to havethe tournament a few weeks earlier and not on the same weekend as the Columbus, Ohio National Elementary School Chess Championships, this was the only weekend available for the sponsors. Since Stockton did such a beautiful job two years ago, we could not turn down their offer. I am sure the turnout will still be great.

Ray Orwig's St. Mark's Quads were off to a good start on October 3, 1998. And, the winners were:
#1- Andrew Chang (1249) 3-0
#2- Dustin Torres (932) 3-0
#3- Danny Bryant (773) 2.5-.5
#4- Earvin Empleo (763) 3-0
#5- Ahmad Moghadam (712) 3-0
#6- Andy Ross-Perry (621) 3-0

(September 2, 1998)
A number of people have asked about tournaments this fall. Keep checking our tournament site. Ray Orwig, in San Rafael, and Elizabeth Shaughnessey in Berkeley are planning on running quads. I will get the dates and applications up as soon as I receive the details.

I would like to welcome Ardenwood School in Fremont to our list of schools with chess clubs. Beny Jain, the President of the fledgling club, can be reached at bjain@aol.com. She expects about 40 members this Fall.

Many scholastic clubs/teams are interested in competition. If you are interested in meeting with another club/team during the year, please let me know and I'll act as a conduit.

The last issue of the CalChess Journal was dedicated to scholastics. Check out the CalChess Journal on-line at http://www.hooked.net/hypermodern/Journal.html.

The last of the Weibel Quads (Aug.22) did not have as many players as the first two, but it still broke 100 with 109 competitors.

Please send me any information about your program or other aspects of scholas

(July 23, 1998)
From Ray Orwig:

"We got 37 players (at the John Easterling Memorial Quad),
most of whom showed up on Saturday morning.

Quad #1- Rene Carranza (1575) 2
Benjamin Haun (1436)2

Quad #2- William Terry (1060) 3

Quad #3- Timothy Ma (904) 3

Quad #4- Joey Arellano (962) 3

Quad #5- Chris Saeturn (952) 2
Andres Fuentes-Afflick (857) 2

Quad #6- Mitchell Thomas (795) 3

Quad #7- Lucien Kahn (757) 3

Quad #8- Yevgeniy Labunskiy (Unr.) 3

Section #9- Jennifer Fiore (Unr.) 4

It was a good tournament, though it was very hot toward the afternoon."

The Tournament Hotel for the CalChess State Scholastics on March 27 and 28 will be the Santa Clara Marriott. They have a complimentary trolley to/from Great America and "Santa Clara's best pool." Oh & most important only a minute or so from the Convention Center.

We will hold the Friday night (March 26, 1999) CalChess State Scholastic Blitz Tournament at the Marriott hotel.

The Hayward Library (July 25, 1998) had to shut down registration a week in advance when the numbers reached their site capacity.

(July 14, 1998)
I just received this information via Tom Dorsch:
"I am very much pleased to inform you that Vinay is the 1998 US Cadets co- champion. Both Vinay and Dmitry Schneider had 5.0 points. Dmitry had the better tie-breaker points. Therefore, he won the first place trophy.
Vinay had an excellent tournament and was the only player not to lose a single game."

Wow! Another stunning triumph by Vinay! He continues to amaze.

Congratulations on his latest stunning accomplishment!

The Cadet Championship is an invitational for the U.S.'s top under 16 year old players.

The Weibel Summer Quad of July 11 drew 140 players, a new record as I hoped. Thirty of the players arrived from Elizabeth Shaunessy's Berkeley Chess School's Summer Camp. Thanks Elizabeth.

(July 9, 1998)
Arrangements have been made for the 1999 CalChess State Scholastic Championships to be held on March 27 and 28 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The negotiations took awhile due to the 20 false 911 calls last year. We have agreed to have monitors at all the telephone banks and no children will be allowed to use the telephonewithout a monitor or TD present. If they do, they are subject to removal from the tournament. If you arewilling to be a telephone monitor for Saturday or Sunday, please let us know--your child will receive a free entry.

What has not been arranged yet is the host hotel or a space for the Friday night blitz tournament.

The CalChess Board moved to reduce the membership cost which includes the CalChess Journal to $10 for scholastic players. We will give discounts at most scholastic events to CalChess players as they do with the adult tournaments. The discount for the CalChess States will be $2. If others follow this practice, your membership and Journal will pay for itself after only playing in 5 scholastic events.

The Weibel Quads on June 27 drew 136 players. Ray Orwig, former scholastic chair, believes this was the largest quad ever held in Northern California. The July 11 Quads may have a new record.

This is some talk of bringing the Junior High School Nationals to Northern California in the near future. No, Alan Kirshner, is not involved in this one.

Eric Schiller informs us that there will be a major event in Hawaii the same weekend as our States in March. He expects to pull a few of our top players. Well, this may open the door for some other players to represent CalChess at the Denker Tournament of State High School Champions. We might not send our best, but even our second layer of chess champions will be very competitive at the Denker.

Last year was the big tournament in Vegas and this year in Hawaii. We lost two or three players to Vegas and increased our number last year 150. Still, I personally wish that other directors would keep in mind that the last weekend in March is reserved for the CalChess Scholastics through the CalChess Clearing House.

Back to the Denker: The CalChess Board voted to have a playoff, with the same time controls, in case of a tie in the High School Division. This special tournament will be set up by the State Scholastic Chair and will have the same time controls as the original competition. The Scholastic Chair will hold the playoff on a separate weekend announced in advance.

Eric also has plans for a scholastic tournament featuring Kasparov at the end of April in Northern California. Sounds great, but I hope it doesn't conflict with the CalGrade Level or any of the Nationals.

Doug Shafer is planning to hold his all girls tournament sometime in January 1999. As soon as we get complete details we will let you know.

(June 5, 1998)
Last Sunday I went to observe a K-3 grade level tournament in San Mateo. Doug Shafer produced an excellent tournament for the children at Las Lomitas Elementary School. He had 40+ participants. He is planning an open all girls tournament in November. If he organizes it only half as well as he did his grade level, it will be a great event.

Information from the Junior High School Nationals keeps trickling in. Something must exist in the water in Fremont that inspires kids to play chess. A Kyle Swany who attends Centerville Junior High School attended the competition in Pheonix. He went undefeated in the Novice Division to take a clear third with 6 1/2 out of 7 points. Kyle had only played tournament chess since the end of March and is not affliated with any of the chess powerhouse schools in town. Kudos to Kyle.

Don't overlook the summer tournament schedule with three scholastics in Fremont, one in San Rafael and one in Hayward.
(May 19, 1998)

I just received some more information from the Junior High School Nationals in Phoenix. Evan Campbell, coach of the Mark Twain Jr. H.S. chess team in Modesto tells me that they obtained a6th place among 62 teams in the U1000 division and a 15th among 52 teams in the U750. Congrats from CalChess Scholastics. We are pleased that Northern California teams are attending the nationals. A few years ago about the only team from our area that went to the Junior high nationals was St. Marks School of San Rafael.

If any other coaches or players have information, especially relating to the Elementary School Nationals, please drop us a line.


(May 18, 1998)

In case any of you wondered why our strongest Northern California scholastic player was not at the High School Nationals in LA, I just received the following information from his father:
"I am very pleased to inform you that Vinay won the first place in the 1998 Pan American Youth Chess Championships (Under-14 Boys) in Brazil. Thus he also obtained the FM title as well."

Congratulations to Vinay from CalChess Scholastics.

(May 12, 1998)

SCHOLASTIC NATIONALS:

Kudos to all the players and teams that competed in the scholastic nationals this year.

I attended the High School Nationals in Los Angeles (May 7-10, 1998). While a disappointing number of Northern California players and teams attended, those that did performed brilliantly. I do not have a cross table of the results so please forgive me if I accidentally short someone's success.

Four North Cal teams competed in the Championship section. Bellarmine, Downey, Berkeley and College Preparatory all placed. I believe the College Preparatory School of Oakland did the best by placing 7th among the 62 teams competing. Bellarmine placed as well in the Quick Chess (game in 10) held on Thursday night before the tournament began. Micah Fisher-Kirshner tied for second in that 150+ player Quick Chess Tournament.

Eleven Masters played in the 500+ player Championship Division. The highest rated player came in at 2584--yup, 2584. Our own Gabe Kahane(2033) ruined the 2584's chances at first by forcing a draw in the third round. Gabe, who hasn't
played much this year had a great tournament. He did not lose a game and had two draws to give him six points out of seven and a tie for fourth. Andy Lee(2038) also had an outstanding tournament making every Master he faced sweat. He, like Gabe, won six and drew two. Andy also tied for fourth.

Micah Fisher-Kirshner (1967), Jennie Frenklakh(2131), Jordy Mont-Reynaud(2271), David Pruess (2221) and Anthony Rozenvasser (2032) all finished with 5 1/2 points and tied for 13th. Perhaps the most impressive result came from Matthew Ho who won five games in the Championship Section. He is only in fourth grade--watch out Vinay.

A Marcos Martinez (2330) from Florida defeated last years champion, Harutyun Akopyan (2370). A lot of Chess Federation official probably drew a sigh of relief. Even in chess superstars seem to get special treatment and rules bent. Harutyun, who registered late, took off before the first round. He missed the round and forfeited the game. When he showed up in the afternoon, explaining that his car broke down, the officials found him a 1700 sparing partner who also forfeited his first game. The time controls were reduced and the second round delayed until Harutyun won his game. And, as I guess you have gathered, instead of rating the game as an extra it was counted for the first round.

Big congratulations are due to Jennie Frenklakh. The United States Chess Federation awarded her a college scholarship to the college of her choice as the outstanding scholar chess player for the 1997-98 school year.

I received very little information about the Junior High School Scholastic Nationals. I know Ray Orwig deserved to be proud of his players in both the Championship and Junior Varsity sections. His players placed far above their entry ranking. His team--St. Marks School of San Rafael--took 13th in the 52 team Championship Division. Piedmont Middle School also sent a team. Piedmont who won our state Championship this year after knocking a former National Junior High School Team out of their string of first place victories--Hopkins Junior High School--took a fourth at the Nationals. Kudos to all Northern Californians who attended this event in Phoenix from May 1-3 that drew 1200 participants.

I do not at this writing have any information about the Elementary School Scholastic Nationals. I do know that almost 1800 young people showed up in Peoria from April 24 to 26.

(April 2, 1998)

CalChess Scholastic drew 709 players after 730 registered. 2113 games were completed. The Santa Clara Convention Center almost remained in one piece. Thanks to the 30 + volunteers and paid staff who made this tournament an overwhelming success.
(February 22, 1998)

The results are in from the Alameda County High School Chess Championships (first ever-2/21/98) and the Santa Clara County High School Chess Championships (2/7 & 8/98).

Alameda County:

Varsity Division
FIRST--Andy Lee, 4 1/2 of 5
SECOND--Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Peter Newhall, 4 of 5

FIRST TEAM--Mission San Jose High School, Fremont
Micah Fisher-Kirshner, Tov Fisher-Kirshner, Joseph Lonsdale, Kevin Simler, Solon Yang
SECOND TEAM--Berkeley High School
Andy Lee, Andrew Fan, Jonathan Fan, Man Way Liu, Jonah Bilovsky
THIRD TEAM--Bishop O'Dowd High School, Oakland
Julius Mercado, Frank Calma, Mario Adoc, Tom Martell, Alex Chui

Junior Varsity Division
FIRST: Eric Chen, Henry Cheung (Mission San Jose HS), Jimmy Lee, Kevin Ly (Oakland HS),
Craig Siliman (Newark HS), 4 our of 5 for all.

FIRST TEAM--Oakland High School
Jimmy Lee, Kevin Ly, Peter Lee, Jimmy Chi
SECOND TEAM--Mission San Jose High School
Eric Chen, Henry Cheung, Azman Hussain, Kishan Gupta, Cha-Cheng Xie
THIRD TEAM--Newark High School
Craig Siliman, John Fisher, Tom Pyper

Santa Clara County
1st Place Bellarmine College Preparatory
Winner of "John Marks Perpetual Trophy"

Patrick Macaraeg
Dave Brown
Alex Chavez
Ben Kavanaugh
Robin Lindsay

2nd Place Cupertino High School

Yosen Lin
Anthony Rosenvasser
Dawnis Chow
Phillip Snowberger
Robert Young

3rd Place Los Altos High School

Alexander Lam
Edward Yu
Vitaly Vatkovskiy
Ben Hsieh
Ben Mlynash

Individual Champion

Alexander Lam Los Altos High School 4.5 points


Plaque Winners

Kasparov (1st) Fischer (2nd) Waitzkin (3rd)

Senior Gary Torgersen James Cadatal Ricardo Mendoza
Gunderson Independence Gunderson

Junior Justin Powell David Kieu David Lau
Monta Vista Leigh Westmont

Sophomore Vadim Perelman Ernest Huang Eric England
Monta Vista Lynbrook Lynbrook

Freshman Rakesh Thangellapalli Waylen Fong Robert Hennessy
Monta Vista Archbishop Mitty Bellermine

Just a side note: I found it interesting that the winning teams of both counties had players who used to attend small tournaments and learning sessions when they were in elementary school under the direction of Lee Corbin. Bellarmine--David Brown, Ben Kavanaugh, Robin Linsey Mission--Micah & Tov Fisher-Kirshner, Kevin Simler.

If you haven't heard, Junior High School student Vinay Bhat tied for first place in the Open Division of the People's Tournament (no not the Young People's). Vinay may soon reach the Senior Master stage (2400) before the age that Bobby Fischer obtained Master (at 14). Vinay was the youngest to obtain Master when he achieved that distinction at 10 1/2.

The Young People's Tournament in Berkeley on February 16 was won by eight year old Wesley Chen.

(January 21, 1998)

HEADLINE: DON SHENNUM CONFLICTED

Meaning--he will not be able to be the Chief TD at the CalChess State Scholastic Championships. We have also lost his wife Laura as a TD. We have contracted Allan Fifield, a USCF Senior TD, to head the tournament. Allan, from Visalia, has extensive scholastic tournament directing including being Chief TD for the 1996 California Grade Level Chess Championships. I am sure, with his status, knowledge and experience, he will do an excellent job.

(January 7, 1998)
Happy New Year!
I am moving this newsletter back to a frame on our main page because when it was there I received some responses. I have had none since I established a separate section.

The CalChess State Scholastic Championships are looming close. This year's competition might have an international flavor. The competition has always been open to individuals from other states. When Ray Orwig held the Championships at his school we had players from Southern California (a separate state), Nevada and Arizona. While out of state players can win trophies, they cannot gain the title of CalState Champion. If the High School winner is from out of state s/he cannot represent California at the Decker National High School Championships. CalState does help defray the cost of our state champion attending this match. I have received inquiries from players in Mexico and China (I think Taiwan) to attend this year's competition.

Tony Lambert is back! Tony was one of Northern California's prolific organizers and the Ruus Elementary School's chess coach a number of years back. He left the area to work in Guatemala and Mexico. He is again teaching in California--Southern California. He has already reserved a suite of rooms at the Westin Hotel for his team that he will be bringing to the States. I for one am very pleased to know that he has returned to teaching chess to under privileged children. He has had amazing success with his program. We have a few other coaches in Northern California with similar records: Kevin Cripe, Floyd Bynum and John Easterling.

The US Chess Federation's National Scholastic Committee has made some recommendations for changes in the rules under which the National Scholastic Championships will function. Since our competition abides by these rules, any change would impact our match in 1999. In the Elementary School Open division, participants would have to keep score. Presently, the USCF only mandates that Junior High School and High School students record their games. The USCF will continue to recommend that all kindergarten through sixth grade students, even in the Junior Varsity divisions, record their games. The other major change they recommend is to permit the taking of byes for any round. Presently only one 1/2 point bye is permitted for missing the first round as long as the director is notified at registration.

The USCF Executive Committee has requested input from the Scholastic Committee on establishing a new scholastic national championship for players on Club Teams. The present championships only provide for accredited school teams.

I did not receive any expression of interest in establishing a scholastic league. However, I do know that the Berkeley Bishops will compete against St. Marks and Weibel this month. If you have news of other team competitions, please let me know.

I am establishing the first ever Alameda Co. High School Championships. San Jose and Santa Clara have had High school Championships for years. The competition will be held on Saturday, February 21, 1998 in San Leandro. The Bishop O'Dowd Chess Club and San Leandro Community Services will sponsor the yearly event. Check the scholastic tournament schedule for further information.
(January 7, 1998)
Happy New Year!
I am moving this newsletter back to a frame on our main page because I have when it was there I received some responses. I have had none since I estanlished a separate section.

The CalChess State Scholastic Championships are looming close. This year's competition might have an international flavor. The competition has always been open to individuals from other states. When Ray Orwig held the Championships at his school we had players from Southern California (a separate state), Nevada and Arizona. While out of state players can win trophies, they cannot gain the tittle of CalState Champion. If the High School winner is from out of state s/he cannot represent California at the Decker National High School Championships. CalState does help defray the cost of our state champion attending this match. I have received inquiries from players in Mexico and China (I think Taiwan) to attend this years competition.

Tony Lambert is back! Tony was one of Northern California's prolific organizers and Ruus Elementary School's chess coach a number of years back. He left the area to work in Guatemala and Mexico. He is again teaching in California--Southern California. He has already reserved a suite of rooms at the Westin Hotel for his team that he will be bringing to the States. I for one am very pleased to know that he has returned to teaching chess to under privileged children. He has had amazing success with his program. We have a few other coaches in Northern California with similar records: Kevin Cripe, Floyd Bynum and John Easterling.

The US Chess Federation's National Scholastic Committee has made some recommendations for changes in the rules under which the National Scholastic Championships will function. Since our competition abides by these rules, any change would impact our match in 1999. In the Elementary School Open division, participants would have to keep score. Presently, the USCF only mandates that Junior High School and High School students record their games. The USCF will continue to recommend that all kindergarten through sixth grade students, even in the Junior Varsity divisions, record their games. The other major change they recommend is to permit the taking of byes for any round. Presently only one 1/2 point bye is permitted for missing the first round as long as the director is notified at registration.

The USCF Executive Committee has requested input from the Scholastic Committee on establishing a new scholastic national championship for players on Club Teams. The present championships only provide for accredited school teams.

I did not receive any expression of interest in establishing a scholastic league. However, I do not that the Berkeley Bishops will compete against St. Marks and Weibel this month. If you have news of other team competitions, please let me know.

(September 16, 1997)
I have mailed a first copy of the CalChess State Championships to all the coaches on mailing list. You can also download a copy at http://www.hooked.net/~hegemon/APP98.html. A CalChess Scholastic Blitz Championship will be held on Friday night, March 27, 1998. There will be three place trophies and 12 grade level trophies.

If you haven't check the tournament schedule, Ray Orwig will run three scholastic quads this season as he has done over the years.

I have available the Southern California Scholastic Chess Schedule for 1997-1998. If you are interested, e-mail me at:

Is there any interest in establishing a scholastic team chess league? Let me know at the e-mail address above.

(August 24, 1997)
The host hotel for the California State Scholastics will be The Westin. The hotel is across from Great America and attaches to the Santa Clara Convention Center. Room rates will be $89 no matter how many people in a room. Roll-a-way beds are available free if you have more than four in your group. Call 1-408-986-0700 or 1-800-228-3000 to make your reservation. Be sure to ask for the special chess rate.

Coaches and chess instructors who are on the CalChess scholastic mailing list will receive a first copy application for the State Scholastics in a few weeks. Full application packets will be sent to all after the New Year. If you have a scholastic chess program and have not been receiving information, please send your name, the name of your school or club, address, telephone number, and e-mail address to the Scholastic Coordinator.

Alan Kirshner has the new USCF ratings from his July 26 Weibel Quads. E-mail him if you are interested in obtaining any updated ratings.

(July 24, 1997)
Ray Orwig has resigned as the CalChess Scholastic Chair after more than ten years at the job. CalChess President, Richard Koepcke, has appointed Alan Kirshner as his replacement.

We will hold the CalChess State Scholastic Championships on March 28 and 29, 1997 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. 

The June 28 Weibel Summer Quads had 107 players.  The July 26 Quads had 102 players.

If you played at the Grade Level Championships in Stockton and wondered what happened to your rating or new USCF membership, they were mailed to the USCF quite late due to a misunderstanding on the part of the organizers.

If you weren't aware of it, CalChess is one of only a few states that have their player ratings updated weekly on the web. You can obtain rating information by clicking on the Northern California site button above.

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