WEIBEL CHESS ENDS YEAR WITH OUR ANNUAL CHESS BANQUET

The 2017-2018 Weibel Chess year ended on Friday, May 25^th, with our Annual Awards Banquet.  A successful year end with successful ceremonies, albeit, not without a bit of noise.  As much as I try to keep the noise down, it is difficult to keep 250 plus parents, students and instructors involved for two and a half hours after they eat.

We started with the food followed by my bragging about the growth of our Club and Team players with their improvement in skills and the numerous trophies the team players amassed in 2017-2018.  Since the school does not have room to keep the trophies, I gave them to the top scorers in the respective team tournaments.  The Ferguson family then awarded the annual scholarship and plaque named after their son Scott.  A speeding bus killed him on a Boy Scout biking trip in 1992 after he left Weibel and was scheduled to attend Junior High School in the Fall. He was one of our top players in those early Weibel Chess years as well as a great athlete and a wonderful human being.  I told the audience that my first criteria for the award was that, like Scott, the recipient had to be a student I have never had to “discipline.” This meant that the choice came down to three students.  Ekansh Samanta, a third grade student, won the $150 scholarship to go to a chess camp or obtain chess materials based on the actual criteria of being the individual that best represents the values and mission of Weibel Chess. 

Then came the thank you cards and little gift to the people who volunteered this year to help our program to continue as well as our staff of amazing instructors who always raise the standards and skills of our players.  I provided Fahria Khan, who has made our Awards Banquet possible over the last few years, a special crystalline award thanking her for her service to Weibel Chess from 2009 to 2018.  I feared that, if Fahria gets elected to the Fremont School Board in November, she will not have the time to organize our banquet next year.  I determined it was time to provide her with an ever lasting thank you.

Awards followed: Two of our sixth graders obtained their Elite Weibel player jackets—Krish Gangal(1472) and Umesh Gopi (1453).  A few players had received their jackets earlier in the year.  Nikko Le (1802), a fourth-grade student who became a Weibel Elite Player in first grade, received a very large crystalline trophy.  The criteria for this Ultimate Weibel Player Award is to maintain a rating for three straight tournaments that should place him/her in the top 50 players on the U.S. Chess Federation’s Top 100 age group list.

The Most Valuable Player award, for the second straight year, went to fifth grade student Yesun Lee(1651).  Ryan Tiong (1370), a fourth-grade student, won the Rookie of the Year player.  The Most Improved trophy went to Ryan’s sixth grade sister, Rachel Tiong, who jumped from a rating of 730 to 1385 this year.  I understand from her coach, Demetrus Goins, that after he rates his weekly Shoreview Chess marathon tournament she will be well over 1400.

I provided five trophies in the Club and five in the Team for the players who gained the most points on our inhouse point sheet for the chess year.  In the Club, Stanley Kwok took first, Carston Hamali second, Ahana Vashith third, Kriti Kini fourth and Arman Sirjani fifth.  On the Team, Nikko Le was the overwhelming winner with Louis Le second, Vincent Yang third, Ryan Tiong fourth and Rachael Tiong fifth. Points are awarded for winning games in our inhouse tournaments, attending USCF tournaments, helping the instructors, doing well in their classes and for extra-credit homework.  As the students accumulate points, they receive titles from Weibel Pawn to Weibel’s Magnus Carlsen.  At the end of the year they obtain a certificate of their status.

Students then obtained their certificates, a participation trophy for surviving the year and a raffle ticket. The ceremonies ended with the raffle through which all students received a door prize that ranged from Chess clocks to chess key chains. 

I want to thank all of those volunteers who helped at the Awards Ceremonies under Fahria Khan’s leadership.  Many of whom were the same ones who helped during the chess year. I also wish to thank the Weibel School Principal, Annie Lee, and her office staff along with the custodians and the Weibel school teachers who allow us to use their classrooms.  Fahria made sure each of them received a card and a little gift from us.

I did my best to take a few minutes away from the microphone handing it over to my very able Assistant, Jenny Ly, to take a few photographs.  A few of these are inserted with this posting.  More photos are available for your viewing at: http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html