WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS DOMINATE THE CALCHESS STATE SCHOLASTIC CHESS GRADE LEVEL CHAMPIONSHIPS
CalChess held the yearly Grade Level State Chess Championships. I started this event as the Scholastic Chair of CalChess held at Weibel back in 1993. We drew 219 players. Since that time the tournament has doubled the participants and has added a few non-Championship sections that have brought the number of participants to over 500 this year. CalChess began to put the tournament out to bid around 1999 and it was held for many years in Stockton. A few years back it returned to the Bay Area and this year CalChess held the event at the Santa Clara Convention Center. I realize for those that were there that it appeared to be a Bay Area Chess event because you hardly saw a CalChess sign anywhere, but let me assure this was a CalChess, the official affiliate of the U.S. Chess Federation, State Championship.
My policy in the last few years has been to designate the top four or five players, by their U.S. Chess Federation ratings, in each grade as those representing Weibel about three weeks before the States. The competition is very strong and sending our least experienced players as well would simply make them fodder for other teams.
While the competition was very strong this year, as usual, it may have been watered down due to the Bay Area Chess organizer holding an open event (for adults and kids) at the same location and time. He told me himself that it was likely a mistake. Notably missing was our annual adversary, Mission San Jose Elementary School’s teams. I deny the rumor that they were afraid that Weibel would out play them as we did last year winning the Championship in GRADE 4 (11.5-7), GRADE 5 (13-9.5) & GRADE 6 (12-9). I do not know the reason their long time coach failed to have his teams present. I must admit my disappointment that we failed to have all of the best teams present.
We only had one Kindergarten student on our Team classes this year and only a few in the Club. I believe this may be due to all the Kindergarten classes being in the morning this year. So I did not have any Kindergarten team as they count the points of the top three finishers in each grade for the team. A team can have as many members as they want, but it would be very difficult to win with only one or two team members, although it does happen.
I initially did not invite any first graders to compete as our First Grade team members are almost all beginners with provisional U.S.C.F. ratings. This means they have very little tournament experience and many first grade players have a fair number of tournaments under their belt. On Wednesday, before the Grade Level States took place on the weekend of November 16 and 17, 2019, I looked at the entries. Doing some calculations and using my instincts from years of experience with tournaments, I concluded that Weibel players despite their inexperience could place in the top three in First Grade section. I immediately sent out an e-mail to the parents of the First Grade players indicating I had changed my mind, and although extremely late, I was inviting their children to compete. I kept my fingers crossed that three would respond positively. I was thrilled when seven of our players entered the Championships.
Grades K, 1, 2, 3 competed on Saturday only in five games each of which could technically go over an hour due to time controls on the their clocks that was game 30 minutes and delay 5 seconds for each player. This translate each player had 30 minutes to complete their move with a touch more as the clock did not start for five seconds once the button was pressed to start their turn.
Our First Grade Team consisted of Jasper Chung, Yuva Herur, Adrika Kasyap
Abir Kulkarni, Shourya Navada, Pradyuan Rishi, Siddhant Vivek. I am so proud, almost as proud as their parents, that this group of beginners, thanks to the training they are receiving from our chess coaches and assistant coach finished in first place. Since the Weibel Office says it does not have space for our trophies anymore, the first place trophy will be kept, as will all of them, by the player who obtained the highest number of points to help us win. In this grade, it was Adrika Kashyap.
Our Second Grade Team consisted of Deniz Korzmaz, Stanley Kwok and Ojas Parhar. They also took home the Championship title despite other teams having much higher rated players.
In Third Grade we did not fare as well and had to settle for second place. Three of our players led the Team with three out of five wins all coming home with individual place awards: Ryan Chen, Matthew Miu and Lucas Immanuel Oh. Not far behind with 2.5 points each were Sara Kuntjara (she actually only played three out of the five rounds as she had a piano recital that afternoon) and Louis Le.
Besides school teams, the State Championships have Club Teams that can put together players from other schools if they have been attending their programs. Some of our players also competed for Shoreview Chess, NorCal House of Chess and Liu Chess. I few years ago I registered a Weibel Charging Knights Club with the U.S. Chess Federation to allow players who attend our program to join our players who are not members of another Club to have a team to have companionship at the tournaments. In third grade Elizur Fisher-Kirshner(Basis), Alexander Ng (Harvey Green), Victor Wei (Patterson) and Navidh Panchel (Warm Springs) who come to Weibel every Friday joined Sara, Louis and Mathew as the WCK Club Team. Their Club Team placed third out of eight team. I am thrilled to report that my grandson Elizur had his best tournament in a while. He took home the third place trophy, winning all but one game, behind the two players who tied as Champions by winning all five games.
We returned to our winning streak in Fourth Grade. Grades 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 competed on both Saturday and Sunday. They had three games each day with time controls of Game in 1 hour and delay 5 seconds. This translates to each game possible going over two hours.
Our individual players did very well and like all our players, they get my Kudos. Competing for Weibel were Vivaan Parhar, Soham Chatterjee, Drake Long and Lucas Chiang. Ethan Zhao from Warm Springs joined them in the WCK Club competition.
Fifth Grade had some strong competition from a group that was listed as Bella Vista High School. This was a bit confusing since fifth is not a high school grade, even though some flat earth believers might think so. It turned out, after I inquired, that they had confused the Bella school with an elementary school with a similar name. Our players pulled out a victory obtaining 11 points to their 10.5. The three players that made this possible were Mai-Ha Nghiem, Ekansh Samanta and Edward Miu. Our back-up players, who did well, were Akarsh Khare and Om Herur.
Sixth Grade, I think I can honestly say, did not live up to expectations. Our strongest group took second way behind Miller Elementary School. I am not sure if they were over confident or just not focusing. Their wall cha, I put up for them to record their results, was a mess of joking around scribbling. The group consisted of Nikko Le, whose rating of 1872 put him on top of the list of competitors. Ryan Tiong’s 1806 placed him fifth on entering the event. Shruti Nath entered in 11th place. Reyansh Gangal and Mihika Deshpande were our back-up players.
I was excited that our Assistant Coaches, those dedicated and former Weibel students, played for Horner, but almost to a person, wore their Weibel Ass’t Coaches jackets. In Grade Seven Horner took third behind Fallon Middle School and Hopkins. Vincent Yang, from Horner, with an 1826 rating, did not enter and sadly our best female player ever moved to the Hopkins District—Female FIDE Master, Yesun Lee (1897). Yesun did join our WCK Club Team as in her heart she was and always will be a Weibel aficionado. However, even if she had been on our Horner Team and not Hopkins it only meant that we would have placed second instead of Hopkins. Fallon Middle School has been in the last few years a shining edition to the competition in Northern California due to a truly dedicated coach and a tremendous amount of parental support. I would say that their parental support rivals the wonderful encouragement our parents provide. I was almost in tears when I heard the near deafening cheers our parents provided our teams. The players on the Grade 7 Team were Kevin Arakkal, Charlene Kwok, Reynansh Samanta and Chau-Ha Nghiem.
Horner Junior High School, which I guess will become Horner Middle School when Weibel Sixth grade is eliminated next year and we become a K-5 school, won the Championship behind a typical group of former Weibel animated girls. Prisha Jain, Rachael Tiong and Isha Varada. Dharshan Vetrivelan, our highest rated player at 1680 was having a bad day and dropped out after round four. Fallon came close in second place only one point behind and also having a female as their top scorer.
So we had an exhausting, hectic, exciting and successful weekend. I could not have survived it in my ancient years if I did not have the help of two of my most supportive coaches. Jason Cruz, not only brought the sign, banner and other equipment we needed in the parents room, he spent two days going over our players’ games. Side Note: Jason even made sure to get to the Convention Center on time with the materials on Sunday driving for a short while on a flat tire. Bless his soul! Grand Master Enrico Sevillano came on Sunday to also analyze players games and share with them his knowledge of chess that made him a Grand Master as well as an individual who continues to win prestigious chess tournaments. He even stayed around after the awards ceremonies to help pack up our equipment.
My list of thanks extends to the students and their parents who spent one or two weekend days cramped in a stuffy Convention center and perhaps got caught in the crowd of sport fans heading to Levi Stadium on Sunday. My total appreciation to all. My special thanks is directed to Lillian Wang who kept taps of the results, marked the score charts on the wall and most of all help me crawl on stage taking my camera and take photos so I could join our players in the Team pictures.
What a wonderful group of players, parents and coaches. Thank you again!