Weibel Chess

I want to thank everyone for giving up their weekend to attend the State Grade Level Championships in a crowded and inadequate facility at the Pleasanton Hilton.  I want to assure all of you that are new to large events that not all big tournaments are run as badly.    For those of you heading to the Super-Nationals in April, I do expect you to see how proper preparation can produce a successful event with 5000 plus participants, not just 400 plus as appeared at this weekends event.

On a very very  positive note--I had a number of parents from other schools ask how they could join the Weibel Chess Team, not just because they could tell we had serious chess players, but because our children were truly enjoying themselves playing chess.  They were disappointed to learn that except for a very few exceptions, our program was limited to students attending our elementary school.

Our happy kids, as a whole, did quite well with a good number coming home with trophies. Since I do want to get to bed before I collapse, I am not going to list all the trophy winners.  You can find the full results of the Championships at http://bayareachess.com/events/12/c15.php

The best result of the evening came from fifth grade student Anthony Zhou. As the new State Fifth Grade Champion Anthony will forever have his name engraved in the Weibel Chess Hall of Fame.  Oliver Wu, in second grade continues his meteoric rise to someday winning a State Championship and maybe more.  He finished third without a lose, winning four games and tying a fifth.  Close on his tail was Louis Law who only lost to the ultimate winner of the event. Right behind Louis in the standings with four wins and one loss was Eshaan Mistry. Both tied for fourth place.  There were a large number of other Weibel players in this section that give us amazing depth.  I have predicted that by the time this group is in sixth grade, baring anyone moving, Weibel will win the Nationals again. 

I had mentioned last Friday that I would provide special awards to anyone in grades K, 1, 2 & 3 who get 4 out of five points.  Since grades 4 and up played 6 games, winners of my special award would have to obtain 4.5 points and up. Besides the names I mentioned earlier, third grade student Ryan Song obtained a tie for third place with 4 points. Second grader William Sartorio obtained four points.  In fourth grade, Jeremy Chen will be a recipient of the award with 4.5 points and a tie for sixth place.

What about Team results? Well, many would say getting second in every section except Kindergarten was a great result.  However, it is hard for me to feel that way. We went into the last round in every division either in first place or with a great chance of winning first place.  Our--my--Weibel Team fell victim once again to the gremlins that have plagued us in almost every major tournament except the Nationals over the last five years.  Our players lose their final games. We do not have the staying power and I am at a loss as to how to fix the problem.  I have tried different motivation methods over the years all to no avail.  This year I tried to work on visualization and confidence.  I am going to continue that theme for the rest of the chess year as we may need more time.  Time will tell.

Now on to my heroes--the players and parents in Kindergarten.  They gave us our only State Championship Team.   We have only two Kindergarten players on the Team.  We needed three for a team in the Grade Level.  In other championships a Team consists of four players.  I put out a call to our Club for an extra player.  Three people responded and so Weibel had five players in Kindergarten to draw its three top player points from.  The five Kindergarten players on this year's State Championship Team are:  Mihir Gadre, Nik Sadeghi,  Erin Law, Alex Htutt, Natalie Brahan.

One final note:  Throughout most of my tenure at Weibel the vast majority of the players drop out of organized tournament chess by Junior High School.  Our class of 2010 continues playing chess even though they do not train any more at Weibel.  Last year they placed second in the Junior High Nationals. Today, they won the Ninth Grade State Championship.  I can't express how much this meant to me to stand on stage next to this group of wonderful, dedicated and skilled players.  I can literally say that I looked up to each and every one of them. I tried standing on my toes, but it didn't help.  KUDOS to Irvington students Daniel Ho, Justin Wang,  Amarinder Chahal, Nikhil Jaha, Shubham Gupta.  I hope they join us  at the Super Nationals in Nashville the first weekend in April.

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