WEIBEL GIRLS WIN FIRST PLACE AT THE NORTH AMERICAN GIRLS' CHAMPIONSHIPS

Old news—a week old: While I was holding my Weibel Chess Quads on Saturday, November 3, and busy recovering on Sunday, eight of the 22 Weibel Girls Team members attended a Bay Area Chess tournament, Northern American Girls Championships sponsored by the Susan Polgar Foundation. I only require that all our girls attend the CalChess Girls Age Level held in March and hosted by Berkeley Chess School. There are five different girls’ tournaments held in Northern California each year and I selected the one that carries on the tradition of the first all-girls event set back in the 1990’s by the Sojourner Truth Girls Championships which drew around 140 players each year. That event was a happening, meaning it offered far more than just chess competition. The girls’ Age Level for the last two years followed that approach. I do hope it continues as I understand that the original organizer has stepped aside.

I had not been following the entries or the results due to my own event. A few of the parents contacted me and were excited that we took home a second-place trophy as their daughters were new to the Team. None of them recalled who won the first-place trophy.

I think it was Monday when I first checked the results online, but the only posting was the US Chess Federation ratings. I was pleased to see that Judit Sztaray, the organizer had obtained over one hundred players, almost all from the Bay Area.

I wanted to write a story here, but I needed the actual results for the USCF does not post by tiebreaks. I wrote to Judit and asked about the posting of the results. She informed me she has been very busy. Of course, this did not surprise me as she is running one of the biggest programs in the country with many tournaments almost every weekend. She has also lost her right-hand man Abel Talamantez who has been selected to be the new Director of the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club in San Francisco-one of the oldest chess clubs in the U.S. founded in 1854. Kudos to Abel!

A couple of days ago I saw the actual results and informed my chess parents that Weibel girls actually took first place out of 14 teams in the overall tournament where all the sections were counted to provide the winning team. The parents were thrilled to read that we actually won.

I did receive a couple of photos from one parent that I am posting here.

The four girls whose points counted for the Team were: Yesun Lee in the 1400 plus section; Sabrina Kuntjara in the Under 1400 section; Charlene Kwok in the Under 700 hundred section and Olivias Li in the Under 300 section. Yesun took third in her section. Sabrina tied for third in her section. Charlene tied for fifth in her section and Olivia tied for eighth in her section.

Other trophy winners from Weibel were Rachel Tiong, who attends Horner JHS, who tied for fourth in the 1400 plus section; Shruti Nath who tied for eighth in the Under 1400 section. Others competing were: Sara Kuntjara, Eliana Cai, Naomi Li.