Chess tidbits

School is out, so most of you, including myself, have been laying low.  Some future and past events over the past few weeks that haven't been covered:

- the annual Scholastic Championship is being held tomorrow, July 7, at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco.  This event is free, and rated.  Please try and make it, there will be quite a few players there.  5 rounds, G/30.

- to-be 6th grader Michael Wang has now crossed 2000 and is now an Expert.  He did this at the Summer Open in Milpitas a couple of weekends ago.  Congrats to him!

- to-be 5th grader Anthony Zhou crossed 1800 at the Berkeley Open last weekend.  Hooray for him!

- Weibel Team instructor NM Hayk Malvelyan crossed 2300 earlier in June at the Stamer Memorial in San Francisco.  He is not too far away from getting a significant title, an FIDE Master (FM) title.

- speaking of FIDE, the July FIDE ratings are now out.  Recent Weibel graduate Kevin Moy got his initial rating, and it came in very high, at 2001!  That makes him 9th in the US for U12, and 61st in the world for U12.

- the official qualifers to represent the United States for the 2012 World Youth Chess Championships came out a couple of weeks ago, which will be held in Slovenia in November.  Here is the official link:  http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11792/319/.  A whopping 18 qualifiers are from Northern California, including Weibel graduate Kevin Moy (Open U12) and former Weibel attendee Joanna Liu (Girls U10).