The same day, May 3, in Santa Clara, Let’s Play Chess has a youth Swiss tournament: http://www.chessthings.com/events.php
On Sunday, May 4, Robert Blatt who ran a large highly praised CalNorth Youth Quads at Tierra Linda Middle School in San Carlos is holding a non-rated Swiss event at Heather School in San Carlos. Over the last few years this tournament has drawn numbers in the mid-one hundreds. I hope he pulls young players from all over Northern California as he did for the April 5 Quads. You can get information at: http://home.comcast.net/~heatherchessclub/heather_chess_2014.pdf
The same day, Bay Area Chess, that holds small youth tournaments just about every weekend, will host both a Swiss and Quads in Fremont: http://bayareachess.com/events/tournament-list/
The next weekend May 10 & 11 includes a whole series of Bay Area Chess tournaments as well as a NorCal House of Chess Quads in Fremont on Saturday, May 10. http://norcalhouseofchess.com/?page_id=9
Sunday, May 11, Chess For Kids is hosting a youth tournament in San Jose. http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/FlyerChessQuads_051114.docx
Saturday, May 17, is the last of the CalNorth Youth Chess Spring Quads. This one will be back at Weibel. I am hoping it will be the largest and the best of the Spring series. As of today 80 players are registered. This bodes well for an excellent event. Why? Because it allows me to divide up the four members playing each other by very close skill levels and school grades. As those that have attend these Quads before know, I do my best to avoid placing players from the same school and club at the same table. This task is not always possible for schools and clubs that have a large number of entries. http://www.calnorthyouthchess.org/SpringTournaments2014/
A side note: On May 3 the NorCal House of Chess will have its second meet against Weibel Elementary School. In their last face off a month ago NCHC defeat Weibel 24 to 22. While Weibel is determined to obtain revenge, the main purpose of these head to head matches is to obtain practice in playing in the long time controls similar to those of the Nationals. Weibel will have three teams at the Elementary School Nationals. NorCal House of Chess cannot field any teams as scholastic tournaments are reserved for academic schools. This, by the way, is why it is called scholastics. Ted Castro’s NCHC has trained many of the top players in the country, including many Weibel players, and they will have a fair number of players at the event.
The Elementary School Nationals are the weekend of May 9 through 11. The tournament presently has 1943 entries. Northern California has a total of 60 entries. This number pales in comparison to New York’s 562 and the 668 entries from Texas. Then again the event is in Dallas so Texas has the home field advantage. Southern California only has 7 entries. I have absolutely no explanation for this. SoCal like NorCal has many outstanding chess players.
The third largest contingent of players in Dallas will be from Florida with 84. The Teams to beat, in most cases, are from Texas and New York. The NorCal teams shape up pretty well. At this writing only three school teams are entered, Mission San Jose, Weibel and Gomes Elementary Schools. While two players from a school can constitute a team to be realistic four players are needed to place in the top of the competition. Presently, Mission San Jose has 15 players entered with full teams of four players in K-1 and K-3. Weibel is sending 26 players with full teams in K-3, K-5 and K-6. Gomes with 5 players will compete in K-6.
The Gomes Team won the K-5 last year and this year the members are shooting to win the K-6. They are by far the favorites despite Jason Zhang being in fourth grade and William Sartorio in third grade. Most of the competitive teams have four sixth grade players. The Nationals will use the May U.S. Chess Federation ratings. Right now only the April ratings are posted online. I took a look at the May ratings that show at the U.S. Chess Federation site as “Published Rating as of 2014-05-01. The four top rated Gomes players are:
2024 Liu, Joanna
1865 Murugappan, Ganesh M
1725 Zhang, Jason Shuhe
1573 Sartorio, William Jiarui
This gives Gomes a team average of 1797. Joanna Liu is presently seeded sixth right behind another player who competes in our Statw, Andrew Zhang Hong.
Weibel will be entering as the third seed behind a team from Texas with an average of 1675. Weibel’s top four players average 1545:
1817 Zhou, Anthony
1578 Show, Serafina
1421 Emmanuel, Daniel
1364 Gupta, Shivangi
For what it is worth, while Weibel will fight to overtake Gomes, the two teams are brothers and sisters in arms and will be sharing the same Team Room.
In K-5, Mission San Jose has only three players. Weibel has eight. Based on current entries and the May ratings Weibel will enter in eighth place with:
1573 Surapaneni, Atri
1404 Lee, Aaron
1384 Chen, Jeremy Y
1265 Mistry, Enya
Weibel does have some depth with four other players that might be able to cover if one player falters. None of the Northern California individual players fall within the top ten entries.
In K-3, Mission San Jose presently is seeded second to a strong team from New York with an average rating of 1518. Mission’s team average is 1466. I would never rule Mission out as they have a record of pulling it through in the last round.
1701 Susarla, Rishith
1536 Pan, Kevin
1505 Meiyappan, Annapoorni
1124 Thirumalai, Atul
Weibel enters in fifth place with a 1388 average. My hope is that Weibel has learned from their rival two miles away and will finish the last rounds with wins as our girls did at the All-Girls Nationals earlier this month. Translation--I need to toughen up my boys. ;-) It is h^&% having a group of great chess players that are nice kids with wonderful parents. ;-) If they play the last rounds as well as they will the first rounds, I am sure Weibel has a shot at the title in this division.
1745 Wu, Oliver
1294 Wang, Vincent X
1286 Law, Louis
1227 Mistry, Eshaan
The perennial winners of this division have been from New York with two private schools that emphasize chess leading the pack, Dalton and Hunter. They are in second and third place. I would not rule either one out as they have amazing depth.
Northern California has an amazing group of individual players in the K-3 section. Balaji Daggupati is presently top seed with a 1935 rating. Other players from our State to watch are Milind Maiti 1814, Callaghan McCarty-Snead 1796, Andrew Peng, 1764, Oliver Wu 1745 and Rishith Susarla 1701.
Only Mission San Jose has a team entered in the K-1 Championship division. Their team average of 863 could place them in the top 5.
1209 Wong, Allyson
1117 Lingannagari, Arnav Reddy
629 Jay, Shreyas
497 Arutla, Siddharth
The leading team in this section, New York’s PS 22, has an average of 1208 for its top four players, but has eight others that can fill in. Once again, keep your eyes on Hunter and Dalton both with team averages over 1000. Both teams have loads of extra players that could replace one or more of their top four. Dalton will field 15 players. Hunter has 10 competitors in this section. Only the top four scores will count in the Team competition.
If you are interest in following how things are shaping up for the NorCal teams and individual players, the pairings and results will be found starting Friday, May 9, at http://www.alchess.com/chess/14/elem/
Chess is Forever!
Alan
PS: Breaking news:
Cupertino’s Vignesh Panchanatham (2317) wins the K-9 Championship division of the Junior High School Nationals. Hopkins Junior High School places second in the team competition in the K-8 Championship Division.
***********************
Alan M. Kirshner, Ph.D.
Director/Organizer
CalNorth Youth Chess Tournaments
“Our family really appreciates the CalNorth Youth Chess tournaments because they are not only superbly run, from a logistical and organizational standpoint, but it is also clear that the principles that guide all those involved, from the leadership to the volunteers, are to cherish, motivate, and inspire our children -- and to do so with excellence, integrity, good humor, and warmth.” David Hwang, Corte Madera
WEIBEL PLAYERS GOING TO THE NATIONALS IN DALLAS FROM MAY 9 THROUGH MAY 11:
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