Friday, December 13, 2019

THE LAST OF THE THREE FALL WEIBEL QUADS

The last of the three Fall 2019 chess quads ended yesterday, December 7. The Weibel Fall Chess Quads began in 1999. I created them to provide our Weibel chess students an opportunity to compete against players from other schools.
A few years back I created a Grand Prix which gave points to the players based on their success in each tournament. Those players who attended all three could compete for a much larger trophies than those provided to the winner(s) of each four person round-robin competition.
In Saturday’s competition, of the 90 who registered, 84 played in 21 tables of four. Over half of those entered had been in the October 5 and November 2 tournaments. When the Grand Prix points were totaled a tie occurred for the Championship and Devesh Mamidi from Shoreview Chess who was in Quad #1 tied with Jocelyn Cheung from Weibel, who was in Quad #13, with 145 points. Om Vatsyayan was first runner-up with 120 points and Alex Chai took home the second runner-up trophy. Interestingly, both Alex and Om were in Quad #12 this time around with Alex taking a first and Om a second. However, Om had gathered more points from the first two tournaments.
I would like to thank Success Chess School for their sponsorship. Thanks to the experience and amazing organizational abilities of former Weibel students with Club TD licenses, Krish Gangal, Yesun Lee, Amy Chan and Louis Law, their secondary school mates, Charlene Kwok and Chau-Ha Nghiem, the Weibel coach extraordinaire, Jason Cruz, and Prakash Narayan who has helped at the Quads for nearly 20 years, everything went off without a hitch. The Law family braved the weather and set-up to sell food. Lisa Chan, as always brought the bagels etc for the helpers, while Rob Chan set up the Wi Fi and a Tarp for the food sales in case of rain. The force was with us for it did not rain until the Quads ended. Lastly, my sincerest thanks goes to the parents, siblings and relatives of the players. Most were inside the playing hall due to the chilly overcast weather and the decibel level was near zero. Unreal!

Monday, November 18, 2019

WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS DOMINATE THE CALCHESS STATE SCHOLASTIC CHESS GRADE LEVEL CHAMPIONSHIPS




CalChess held the yearly Grade Level State Chess Championships.  I started this event as the Scholastic Chair of CalChess held at Weibel back in 1993.  We drew 219 players.  Since that time the tournament has doubled the participants and has added a few non-Championship sections that have brought the number of participants to over 500 this year.    CalChess began to put the tournament out to bid around 1999 and it was held for many years in Stockton.  A few years back it returned to the Bay Area and this year CalChess held the event at the Santa Clara Convention Center.  I realize for those that were there that it appeared to be a Bay Area Chess event because you hardly saw a CalChess sign anywhere, but let me assure this was a CalChess, the official affiliate of the U.S. Chess Federation, State Championship.

My policy in the last few years has been to designate the top four or five players, by their U.S. Chess Federation ratings, in each grade as those representing Weibel about three weeks before the States.  The competition is very strong and sending our least experienced players as well would simply make them fodder for other teams.

While the competition was very strong this year, as usual, it may have been watered down due to the Bay Area Chess organizer holding an open event (for adults and kids) at the same location and time.  He told me himself that it was likely a mistake.  Notably missing was our annual adversary, Mission San Jose Elementary School’s teams.  I deny the rumor that they were afraid that Weibel would out play them as we did last year winning the Championship in GRADE 4 (11.5-7), GRADE 5 (13-9.5) & GRADE 6 (12-9).   I do not know the reason their long time coach failed to have his teams present. I must admit my disappointment that we failed to have all of the best teams present. 

We only had one Kindergarten student on our Team classes this year and only a few in the Club.  I believe this may be due to all the Kindergarten classes being in the morning this year.  So I did not have any Kindergarten team as they count the points of the top three finishers in each grade for the team.  A team can have as many members as they want, but it would be very difficult to win with only one or two team members, although it does happen. 

I initially did not invite any first graders to compete as our First Grade team members are almost all beginners with provisional U.S.C.F. ratings.  This means they have very little tournament experience and many first grade players have a fair number of tournaments under their belt.  On Wednesday, before the Grade Level States took place on the weekend of November 16 and 17, 2019, I looked at the entries.  Doing some calculations and using my instincts from years of experience with tournaments, I concluded that Weibel players despite their inexperience could place in the top three in First Grade section.  I immediately sent out an e-mail to the parents of the First Grade players indicating I had changed my mind, and although extremely late, I was inviting their children to compete.  I kept my fingers crossed that three would respond positively.  I was thrilled when seven of our players entered the Championships. 

Grades K, 1, 2, 3 competed on Saturday only in five games each of which could technically go over an hour due to time controls on the their clocks that was game 30 minutes and delay 5 seconds for each player.  This translate each player had 30 minutes to complete their move with a touch more as the clock did not start for five seconds once the button was pressed to start their turn.

Our First Grade Team consisted of Jasper Chung, Yuva Herur, Adrika Kasyap
Abir Kulkarni, Shourya Navada, Pradyuan Rishi, Siddhant Vivek.  I am so proud, almost as proud as their parents, that this group of beginners, thanks to the training they are receiving from our chess coaches and assistant coach finished in first place.  Since the Weibel Office says it does not have space for our trophies anymore, the first place trophy will be kept, as will all of them, by the player who obtained the highest number of points to help us win.  In this grade, it was Adrika Kashyap.

Our Second Grade Team consisted of Deniz Korzmaz, Stanley Kwok and Ojas Parhar. They also took home the Championship title despite other teams having much higher rated players.

In Third Grade we did not fare as well and had to settle for second place.  Three of our players led the Team with three out of five wins all coming home with individual place awards: Ryan Chen, Matthew Miu and Lucas Immanuel Oh. Not far behind with 2.5 points each were Sara Kuntjara (she actually only played three out of the five rounds as she had a piano recital that afternoon) and Louis Le. 

Besides school teams, the State Championships have Club Teams that can put together players from other schools if they have been attending their programs.  Some of our players also competed for Shoreview Chess, NorCal House of Chess and Liu Chess.  I few years ago I registered a Weibel Charging Knights Club with the U.S. Chess Federation to allow players who attend our program to join our players who are not members of another Club to have a team to have companionship at the tournaments.  In third grade Elizur Fisher-Kirshner(Basis), Alexander Ng (Harvey Green), Victor Wei (Patterson) and Navidh Panchel (Warm Springs) who come to Weibel every Friday joined Sara, Louis and Mathew as the WCK Club Team. Their Club Team placed third out of eight team.  I am thrilled to report that my grandson Elizur had his best tournament in a while.  He took home the third place trophy, winning all but one game, behind the two players who tied as Champions by winning all five games.

We returned to our winning streak in Fourth Grade.  Grades 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 competed on both Saturday and Sunday.  They had three games each day with time controls of Game in 1 hour and delay 5 seconds.  This translates to each game possible going over two hours.

Our individual players did very well and like all our players, they get my Kudos.  Competing for Weibel were Vivaan Parhar, Soham Chatterjee, Drake Long and Lucas Chiang.  Ethan Zhao from Warm Springs joined them in the WCK Club competition.

Fifth Grade had some strong competition from a group that was listed as Bella Vista High School.  This was a bit confusing since fifth is not a high school grade, even though some flat earth believers might think so.  It turned out, after I inquired, that they had confused the Bella school  with an elementary school with a similar name.  Our players pulled out a victory obtaining 11 points to their 10.5.  The three players that made this possible were Mai-Ha Nghiem, Ekansh Samanta and Edward Miu.  Our back-up players, who did well, were Akarsh Khare and Om Herur.

Sixth Grade, I think I can honestly say, did not live up to expectations.  Our strongest group took second way behind Miller Elementary School.  I am not sure if they were over confident or just not focusing.  Their wall cha, I put up for them to record their results, was a mess of joking around scribbling.  The group consisted of Nikko Le, whose rating of 1872 put him on top of the list of competitors.  Ryan Tiong’s 1806 placed him fifth on entering the event.  Shruti Nath entered in 11th place. Reyansh Gangal and Mihika Deshpande were our back-up players.  

I was excited that our Assistant Coaches, those dedicated and former Weibel students, played for Horner, but almost to a person, wore their Weibel Ass’t Coaches jackets.  In Grade Seven Horner took third behind Fallon Middle School and Hopkins.   Vincent Yang, from Horner, with an 1826 rating, did not enter and sadly our best female player ever moved to the Hopkins District—Female FIDE Master, Yesun Lee (1897).  Yesun did join our WCK Club Team as in her heart she was and always will be a Weibel aficionado. However, even if she had been on our Horner Team and not Hopkins it only meant that we would have placed second instead of Hopkins.  Fallon Middle School has been in the last few years a shining edition to the competition in Northern California due to a truly dedicated coach and a tremendous amount of parental support. I would say that their parental support rivals the wonderful encouragement our parents provide.  I was almost in tears when I heard the near deafening cheers our parents provided our teams.  The players on the Grade 7 Team were Kevin Arakkal, Charlene Kwok, Reynansh Samanta and Chau-Ha Nghiem.

Horner Junior High School, which I guess will become Horner Middle School when Weibel Sixth grade is eliminated next year and we become a K-5 school, won the Championship behind a typical group of former Weibel animated girls. Prisha Jain, Rachael Tiong and Isha Varada.  Dharshan Vetrivelan, our highest rated player at 1680 was having a bad day and dropped out after round four.  Fallon came close in second place only one point behind and also having a female as their top scorer.

So we had an exhausting, hectic, exciting and successful weekend.  I could not have survived it in my ancient years if I did not have the help of two of my most supportive coaches.  Jason Cruz, not only brought the sign, banner and other equipment we needed in the parents room, he spent two days going over our players’ games.  Side Note:  Jason even made sure to get to the Convention Center on time with the materials on Sunday driving for a short while on a flat tire.  Bless his soul!  Grand Master Enrico Sevillano came on Sunday to also analyze players games and share with them his knowledge of chess that made him a Grand Master as well as an individual who continues to win prestigious chess tournaments.  He even stayed around after the awards ceremonies to help pack up our equipment. 

My list of thanks extends to the students and their parents who spent one or two weekend days cramped in a stuffy Convention center and perhaps got caught in the crowd of sport fans heading to Levi Stadium on Sunday.  My total appreciation to all.  My special thanks is directed to Lillian Wang who kept taps of the results, marked the score charts on the wall and most of all help me crawl on stage taking my camera and take photos so I could join our players in the Team pictures. 

What a wonderful group of players, parents and coaches.  Thank you again!


WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS DOMINATE CALCHESS GRADE LEVEL CHAMPIONSHIPS

WOW! One of the best chess championships ever for Weibel. CalChess held the State Grade Level Championships at the Santa Clara Convention Center this weekend, November 16 & 17, 2019. We had teams in Grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Horner Junior High School had teams in Grades 7, 8. There were nearly 500 players competing on Saturday and Sunday.
Weibel Chess Teams won the Championships in Grades, 1, 2, 4 & 5. We took second in Grades 3 & 6. Horner players won the Grade 8 Championships and took third in Grade 7.
Our players, for the most part, seemed to have a lot of fun.
I will write a full report and present my thanks and kudos to those who made it possible as soon as I get some sleep. I would at this time, though, present my gratitude to the parents of our First Grade students. To attend this event I select the top four students in each grade to invite. I initially did not select any first grade students as they were all new with only one or two small events under their belts. On Wednesday of this week I analyzed the entry list and decided we had a great chance of getting a team trophy in the top three places. I wrote to the parents of most of the first grade students and asked if any could attend despite my late notice. Six parents took up my call. I think they were more excited than I was when their children won first place. The top three finishing players have their points count for the results.







Sunday, November 10, 2019

Saturday, September 28, 2019

WEIBEL CHESS CLUB NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 28, 2019



While our Team increased a few players our Club lost players.  Last year we had lost a total of 30 player in Club and Team last year.   The 2019 Club has 85 players, a decrease of 10 from the2018 Club.  With Team gaining nine players the net loss is one player.  So I was thrilled that I would not have to make drastic cuts in the budget as a did last year.  The n came the ugly new from the School District.  The Fremont Community Services Director made a decision, despite it being retroactive to charge all PTO programs and run by volunteers to charge facility fees.

 If the Fremont Unified School District goes through with a retroactive policy to charge us through our sponsor, the PTO, for the use of facilities, I will not be able to restore anything of the things from last year’s budget cuts.   If the FUSD does not rescind the extra charges, that were not put into effect until two weeks ago, there will be a budget shortfall of between $5,000 and $15,000. Of course, unless we removed all classrooms and only used the MU, this would destroy our program. Imagine 80 plus kids all in the MUR with 7 loud teachers taking at the same time.  Ahhh.  At this moment with our PTO President,  Sharon Kwok, and a former PTO President, Fahria Khan, attempting to identify to the District their unfair and likely illegal retroactive charges, I am optimistic.

STATS:  Of the 85 members 39 are girls..  We only have 2 Kindergarten students in the Club, down from 8. This drop may be due to all Kindergarten classes being early bird this year..  BY GRADE:  1st = 16 2nd = 21 3rd = 17 4th = 13 5th = 9 6th = 7

CONFUSED OR CURIOUS ABOUT OUR CURRICULM?
I ordered the T-shirts and will order the parents polo shirts next week.  I only order the number of T-shirts for those who get them gratis, those that joined for the year and for those that ordered them extra. I do order two extra in each size in case the parent ordered the wrong size. Requesting a change in the initial order size may not be possible if the two extra are already exchanged unless the one of the exchanged shirts fit
KEEP IN MIND:
1) The children start chess promptly at 2:55 in the MUR.                                

2)  Students are dismissed from the MUR at 4:25 PM.  However students in Amy’s Raw Beginner class are picked up on stage in the MUR.  Beginners in Kevin’s class are picked up outside of Room 13. .  I will send a notice home to the parents of children in the latter two classes.

3)  No parent nor anyone designated on our list to pick up their child may do so before 4:25 PM without advance notice. Please do not enter the MUR until 4:25 PM.

4) All players must leave through the doors leading to the upper/staff parking lot.  No student can exit back into the school or be on school property after chess unless they are in an afterschool program that meets on the campus.
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES:  2:55 util 4:25pm\

E-MAILS TO CONTACT OUR INSTRUCTORS:

Demetrius Goins:  coachdemetrius@gmail.com
Bada Norovasambuu: bada.n0524@gmail.com
Jason Cruz: jacruz04@yahoo.com
Alan Kirshner: Alan@WeibelChess.org
Clarence Jones: arencejones@gmail.com

Our instructors are always willing to answer your questions and provide you with information on your child’s progress,

CHESS MAGNET SCHOOLI still need to set-up for Chess Magnet School for this year placing each student in their class and provide their nicknames. I plan on e-mailing a list of Nicknames and Passwords for ChessMagnetSchool.com.  Those that had Chess Magnet School  previously will use the same Nicknames and Passwords.  Doing puzzles here are optional and students will get one extra point for each ten puzzles.
OPTIONAL CHESS TOURNAMENT AT WEIBEL ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5. http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/FallQuads19-GP

RATINGS AND RANKINGS:

For those of you new to Weibel Chess this year, let me try and explain our ranking system.  Players get points for playing chess, doing homework, attending tournaments and at the discretion of their teacher.  The children get 3 points when they win a game, 2 points for a draw and 1 point for a loss.  These points are doubled when they play in a United States Chess Federation Tournament.  When they obtain a specific amount of points they obtain a title.  For example, after obtaining 8 points they are a Pawn. At the end of the year we have an awards ceremony/banquet.  All players will receive trophies and a certificate with  their current title.  The top 5 point winners will receive special trophies.

Each week, after the first month,—unless my schedule prevents it—I will update the points and the ranking sheets. Please be sure your child brings home a sheet each week.  I often post little notes to the parents on these sheets.  Every few weeks I will send a copy of the point sheet home via e-mail.

Please do not confuse the points a player receives or his/her rating with the level.  Every few weeks I send a copy home via e-mail.  Skill levels are based only upon the class the student attends or the rating they receive when entering U.S. Chess Federation tournaments.  I will ask our instructors every six weeks or so to inform me if a student should be moved up or moved down a level.  Our initial placement was based mainly on the information your provided me about their skill level.

  
Please be sure to check out the Weibel Chess website: http://www.WeibelChess.org.  We also have a blog. If you would like to receive notice of what is new on the blog, please sign on there: http://www.weibelchess.org/   I will be placing this Newsletter on our blog.  We  also have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Weibel-Chess-213022428884018/timeline/
SOME RESOURCES:
If you have a child from 3 to 5 who you would like to learn chess this new program is just the thing.  I bought it for my 3 ½ year old granddaughter.  She loves it when her 8 year old brother reads it to her and works with the pieces:

If your child knows the basics these books by Sabrina Chevannes who is a Women’s International Master who lives in London.  I met her a few times when she taught summer classes at the NorCal House of Chess.  She is an amazingly creative teacher
                                           

For the child that knows chess:

Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, Stuart Margulies, 1982 (New students who came to the New to Team Orientation received a copy.)

Everyone’s Second Book of Chess, 2018 Edition, Dan Heisman

Chess Tactics for Champions, 2006, Susan Polgar

50 Poison Pieces, 2017,  Lauren Goodkind

A First Book of Morphy, 2006 Frisco Del  Rosario




Shoreview Chess in Fremont near Pacific Common

NorCal House of Chess also in Fremont

http://www.ChessMagnetSchool.com supplied to all Team and Club members/
MISCELLANEOUS:
Please be sure to check out the Weibel Chess website: http://www.WeibelChess.org.  We also have a blog. If you would like to receive notice of what is new on the blog, please sign on there: http://www.weibelchess.org/   I will be placing this Newsletter on our blog.  We  also have a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Weibel-Chess-213022428884018/timeline/

OUR TUESDAY CLUB LAST YEAR: