REPORT ON THE SECOND DAY OF THE CALCHESS STATE GRADE LEVEL CHAMPIONSHIPS

As many of you know, I am down in San Diego awaiting the birth of a new grandchild.  I figured it was an acceptable reason not to be at the second day of the CalChess Grade Level State Championships.  Tigran Darbinyan, my Assistant and Gaurang Mehta , Weibel Chess’ senior instructor, handled the 4th, 5th and 6th grade teams for their second and final day of competition. 

The report I received indicated that our Weibel Chess Teams had another good day, although not without some disappointments and tears.  Even though our very strong Sixth Grade Team got hammered by Mission San Jose Elementary School, our three girls scored higher than the higher rated Weibel boys and got all our points.  These three girls were on last years Under 12 Girls National Championship Team--Shivangi Gupta, Enya Mistry and Anvi Surapaneni.  My hope is they will return to Chicago in April to win the Under12 title again this year.

Our Fifth Grade Team finished a half point out of first with the usual chess players mantra, “we coulda, we woulda, we shoulda.”  I believe one fifth grade player deserves special mention —Sumukh Murthy.  Although Sumukh enter the tournament as the lowest rated of all our players he had the highest score on the fifth grade team.

Our amazing group of fourth grade students did it all.  They proved they were champions.  The Team won the Fourth Grade State Championship.  Oliver Wu, the chess wonder kid, accomplished what he said he would—he obliterated the opposition to become the 2014 Fourth Grade Champion. Louis Law, whose sister finished second in Second Grade yesterday, upset the top Mission San Jose player whose national chess rating is 700 points higher, took a second to Oliver.  I figured he wasn’t about to be outdone by his younger sister, Erin.  Eshaan Mistry proved to be another stand out player.  He received 4 points--a half point behind Louis.  He could have been higher if he hadn’t had the misfortune of having to play his own teammate Oliver in the fifth round of the six round event since he stood alone as the second highest player.

Kudos to all the Weibel players, their parents and their coaches who spent the weekend in Stockton at the University of the Pacific.

Alan