Thursday, December 14, 2017

WEIBEL QUADS ONCE AGAIN PROVE TO BE VERY POPULAR


 
The last of the three CalNorth Youth Chess Weibel Quads and Grand Prix tournaments took place last Saturday, December 9.  These Quads, players facing three other opponents, have been very popular over the years.  A large reason has been our ability to set a Quad with children very near the same skill level and age as well as their avoiding playing those from the same school or club.  Our numbers decreased this year.  The December Quad drew 130 competitors.  Fifteen years or so back, in December, the Quads drew near 300 players.  Those were in the days when they were the only game in town.  Today many organizations hold youth chess tournaments.  In some ways, I am happy the numbers have decreased for with age my energy level has also decreased.   I am pleased that I can still say that we are the most popular Quads in Northern California drawing at least three times the number of players of other organizations.  The Weibel Quads continue to have players coming from as far away as Santa Rosa to the north and Monterey to the south.
 
The Grand Prix provides points to players who competed in all three Quads.  The winners of this year’s Grand Prix received larger trophies for first, second and third place plus free entries to the Age Level Championships on February 4, 2018 plus, for first place, all of next Fall’s Weibel Quads.  This year’s winners were:

UNDER 900 U.S. Chess Federation Rating:
1st, Tanish Balamuggan ( Marshall Pomeroy School)
2nd, Matthew Miu (Weibel School) & Anish Shankar (Weibel School)
3rd, Parth Pandhare (Royal Chess), Kai Lum (Basis School), Arnav Pradhan (Horner School)

OVER 900 U.S. Chess Federation Rating:
1st, Mihir Patil (Royal Chess)
2nd, Reyansh Gangal (Weibel School)
3rd, Advaith Mopuri (Chadbourne School)

You can go to http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html for links to the results, U.S. Chess Federation ratings and our three photographers’ pictures.

The next big CalNorth Youth Chess competition will be our Age Level Championships on February 4, 2018 at the very family friendly Newark Pavilion.  This event has drawn around 500 players in past years. Information and an application can be found at http://www.calnorthyouthchess.org/AgeLevel2018/
Ten years back Alan Kirshner, the founder of Weibel Chess, established this tournament to celebrate his 70th birthday.  He is thrilled to still be here for his 80th birthday tournament.

Carl Moy, the present organizer, has also created a two day tournament for high rated youth players on February 3rd  and 4th. http://www.calnorthyouthchess.org/AgeLevel2018/AgeLevelInvitational.html




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