WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS AT THE AGE LEVEL 2015

WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS AT THE  AGE LEVEL 2015

I am so proud of our Weibel players.  A coach, even a perfectionist coach like myself, could not be happier based on the results of the Weibel individual players and our Teams at the CalNorth Youth Age Level this weekend.  I know the school and the Unified School District will be thrilled at the success of the Weibel Chess Team.  This was tough competition and most of our students played like tigers.  Four hundred and thirty one players from over 40 schools participated.  Actually, over 500 registered.  Yes, at least 70 players failed to show.  I believe the weather had a bit to do with this, but I also think many didn’t show because of the large number of early registrants who forgot they signed up.  Numerous e-mails were sent to remind people of the competition, but I am sure like many of my e-mails they landed in spam folders.

I send my Kudos as well to the parents who spent the last few weeks preparing their children for the competition and seeing that they studied.  My thanks to instructors for their excellent work in training their students. 

There were trophies to 15 places in each division with trophies for ties at 15th place.  Three unrated trophies were given to three individuals who never played in a United States Chess Federation Tournament before and did not win one of the 15 trophies in their division.  The top three Teams also received awards.  I am going to simply list the trophy winners.  To view the full standing, the USCF ratings and photographs of the Championships you can go to http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html

No team trophies were awarded in the 4-5 Age Group or the Invitational Divisions. Weibel Chess Teams, in all the rest, minus two-well maybe minus one, took first place.  OK, we tied for first place in the 9 year old division with Warm Springs, however their top players are all Weibel trained.  Yup, in the 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 year old sections our players took home the championship titles.  In a sense they did in the 12 year old section as well.  The first place trophy went to Horner Junior High School and the three former Weibel players stood tall.  Tierra Linda Junior High School from San Carlos won the 13 year old Championships.

In the four and five year old division, Weibel had five players: , Akarsh Khare, Farhan Ali, Kevin Xu, Krishank Sardesai, Avnita Paul.  All brought home trophies.  The star of the 4-5 Age Group was Akarsh Khare who came in second only a half point from first place.  He drew the winner, Issac Lee of Gomes.   Farhan Ali took seventh.   Kevin Xu got tenth.  Krishank Sardesai placed eleventh and Avnita Paul twelfth.

Six of our players in the six year old division came home with trophies. Aakash Koneru, Edward Miu and Nikko Lee all tied for third.   Avyukt Bhardwaj, Ekansh Samanta and David Gao all tied for ninth.

Our seven year olds came away with a four way tie for fourth: Mihir Gadre, Chau-Ha Nghiem, Reyansh Samanta and Yesun Lee.  Nik Sadeghi, Rutansh Pathak and Vincent Yang tied for thirteenth.

The ties continued in the eight year old division.  Umesh Gopi, Justin Wu and Prisha Jain all tied for third place.

Eshan Prakash was our hero in the nine year old division.  He tied for first place.  Irene Xu and Sidhant Chaliha tied for 15th place.

Our Warm Springs Team players who we tied for first place with and learned at Weibel are: Alex Chen (3rd),  Ryan Dai (3rd), Tiger Yang (15th), Ricky Lin (15th). 

Aaron Lee shined in the ten year old division.  He not only tied for first place he won the playoff for the large first place trophy in a blitz (5 minute chess) game.   Stanley Ko had a good tournament as well tying for third place. Kripa Kini, Frederick Zhang and Yash Pradhan all tied for fifth place.

Four of our player came out in third place in the eleven year old division, only one point out of first: Amirah Mohamed Rafi, Prithvi Nagamanivel, Amy Chan, Rahul Ravishankar.

Former Weibel students did well in the 12 and 13 year old division even though they are now in Junior High School: Ambika Tiwari (4th in 12),   Avi Khanna (4th in 12), Praveen Ravindar (4th in 12), Avikam Chauhan (12th  in 12), Akshay Gharpure (5th in 13th)

A fair number of our top players entered the new format Age Level Invitational for longer time controls and to obtain an international chess rating.

In the 4-9 Open Weibel Chess students had the following results: Sidarth Raman (9th),  Eshaan Mistry (13th), Dharshan Vetrivelan (15th), Aaron Hu (15th)

Last year’s Kirshner Cup winner in the 4-9 Open took second this year in the 10-13  Orwig Cup Open.  Oliver Wu lost to an individual he had beaten many times before, Rishith Susarla of Mission San Jose Elementary School.   Louis Law tied for eight but made a big jump in his USCF rating due to defeating some much higher rated opponents.   Zayaan Khan took thirteenth. Jeremy Chen, Suryateja Mandadi and Shivangi Gupta (this year’s Girls State Champion) did not have great tournaments, but still brought home trophies for tying at fifteenth place.

If I left anyone out, please please forgive me.  I am still not recovered from the weekend helping Carl Moy run this successful tournament.   I would have gotten this out sooner, but I have been sleeping a lot the last few days.  I guess that is what happens when you become an Ancient. ;-)