Weibel Knights vs. Berkeley Bishops

 By Alan M. Kirshner

In his ten endgame rules, Reuben Fine wrote that bishops are better than knights in all but blocked pawn positions. When the pawns (the lower board players) were done with their games the Berkeley Bishops Chess Team pulled out wins in the last two games in their January 24, 1998 match against the Weibel Elementary School Chess Team. The Bishops had checkmated Weibel.

For the last five years Weibel’s Charging Knights and the Berkeley Chess School’s Bishops have met across the chess board. Since the Weibel School goes to sixth grade, the Berkeley Bishops only use their elementary school age players. This year Elizabeth Shaughnessy, director of the Berkeley Chess School and former Woman’s National Chess Champion of Ireland, and Alan Kirshner, coach of the Weibel Elementary School Team, agreed to contest 29 boards. Each of the competitors played a game as white and a game as black with a 45 minute time control.

Elizabeth Shaughnessy’s Berkeley Chess School has introduced chess classes with experienced players and teachers in many East Bay Schools. The Bishops are the elite of this group. This year’s Berkeley Bishop Team of 29 derived from 22 different schools. The players on the Weibel Chess Team all attend one elementary school in Fremont.

At the outset of the match, held at Weibel this year, the record of their previous matches stood at 2-2. Weibel had won the first two years and Berkeley the last two years. Richard Shorman, who instructs students on both teams, feels that this competition has forced both groups to look for ways to improve their programs. I do not know about Elizabeth, but in my case Richard’s insight is correct. This year I decided to stop going it alone. I hired four other teachers--Richard Shorman, Hans Poschmann, Rob Nicholson and Micah Fisher-Kirshner--and divided the class of 45 into smaller groups. I know that no other scholastic program in Northern California would have forced me to this action. Elizabeth Shaughnessy’s group is the only scholastic team challenge the Knights have faced in recent years. Weibel, while having great depth, lacks the strongest individual players in Northern California. This has caused the Weibel team some losses at the CalChess State Scholastic Championships. At that meet only the four top finishers from a school have their points counted. Yet, we have won a team championship in the CalChess State Scholastic or the California Grade Level every year since 1990. Elizabeth’s program allows us to test our depth against the best competition and helps prepare us for these two state championships.

Elizabeth and I see this year as a building year for our teams as we had mostly lower school grade level players. Yet, they all performed beautifully. Both teams confronted the difficulty of fielding a large number of young chess players. Elizabeth had to replace a player at the last moment and one of the Bishops never showed. Two Weibel Knights, scheduled for the higher boards, caught the flu so I feverishly made last minute substitutes.

After the first round, the Charging Knights led 15 to 14. During half-time the Weibel and Berkeley parents served snacks. The coaches inspired their players with bribes and threats. I told mine if they won they would get an ice-cream social. I heard from a parent that they told the Bishops that if they lost they would have to walk back to Berkeley.

The round started with an immediate agreed to draw on Board 25. The results, posted on a large whiteboard, kept changing--Weibel, Berkeley, Weibel, Berkeley, Weibel. Finally, with the last three games Berkeley pulled ahead to win the tournament 30.5 to 27.5. The Bishops’ all-stars had stopped the Charging Knights of Weibel for a third straight year. Next year we will meet in Berkeley. I decided that instead of offering my players an ice-cream social to inspire a win, I would threaten them with leaving them in Berkeley.

Here’s one of the better games between two second grader’s:

Sharon Tseung ( Weibel - 644) vs Daichi Siegrist (Berkeley - 731)

1.e4 e5 2.d4 ed 3.c3 dc 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bb4 6.Bd3 0-0 7.0-0 Nc6 8.a3 Bc3 9.bc Re8 10. Re1 d6 11.e5 de 12.Bg5 Qd7 13.Bf6 gf 14.Nh4 Qd8 15.h3 Kh8 16.Qf3 Rg8 17.Rad1 Qe7 18.Qh5 Rg7 19.Nf5 Bf5 20.Bf5 Qa3 21.Re3 Na5 22.Rg3 Rag8 23.Rg7 Rg7 24.Rd8+ Rg8 25.Qh7mate

Elizabeth Shaugnessey
& Alan Kirshner















California Chess Journal, Autumn 1998