CAISSA SHINES DOWN ON THE WEIBEL GIRLS’ CHESS TEAM
Saturday, March 2, 2019, the CalChess Girls State Age Level
Championship was held in the new Berkeley Chess Center. Berkeley Chess School(BCS) transformed this
former church into a Temple for Caissa, the goddess of chess. The interior allowed the worshippers to view
chess history throughout the building. The 100 young nymphs that showed that
day not only played Caissa’s game but spent their energy in a beautiful
playground in the Temple’s cloister.
Caissa gave her grace, as she has done for so many years
before to the Weibel Elementary School’s girls’ chess teams. Weibel girls won the School Team and the Club
Team championship in the open 5 to 17 year old open division which was created
to provide all the best of the best girls to compete to win a $1000 scholarship
to attend the All-Girls Nationals in Chicago on April 12-14. Four of our girls competed in this
division. Yesun Lee(12 years old and a USCF rating of 1776) tied for first and won $500 to attend the Nationals, Shruti Nath(10, 1311) tied for third. Sabrina Kuntjara (12, 1380) placed 5th in the section, yet brought home the second place trophy for the 12 year old group. Three of the players in the top five were under 12 and failed to obtain trophies. Although they were not playing for trophies, as I am sure they have loads, I am sure a little more recognition for their placement, like a chess book or even a certificate would have been nice.
ASIDE: Yesun will
attend the All-Girls Nationals, but sadly despite winning eight Girls’ Nationals
since 2011 a Weibel team will not be attending.
Our parents and I failed to take heed of the organizer’s warning that
the hotel might sell out their rooms early.
They did in early fall as did the nearby hotels due to a popular convention
that same weekend.
Yesun Lee, who was admitted to the Weibel Chess Hall of Fame
in 2018 for breaking the USCF’s 1600 rating, will have State Champion listed next
to her name. She will be joined in our
Hall of Fame by Mihika Deshpande and Charlene Kwok who tied for first place in
the 11 year old division. Chau-Ha Nghiem
tied for fifth place. Sadly, BCS did not
award trophies for those tied for the final position that has been the tradition
in our State Championships.
Mai-Ha Nghiem (1209) took second in the tenth grade division.
From my perspective, this was a far more
difficult task than that faced by her 11 year old teammates for she faced Kally
Wen a USCF 1733 player who by all logic should have entered the National
Scholarship Section.
BCS awarded team trophies for combined age groups and not
individual ages. Weibel Chess dominated
the team 10-11 year old team field winning both the School and Club Championships.
Our younger chess players and teams did not fare as well.
In the nine year old division none of our players finished
in the top five. In the eight year old section Sara Kuntjara did tie for fifth,
but failed to meet the trophy cut-off.
Our team in the 8-9 Age Division finished
second for schools and third for clubs.
In the Seven Year Old Division, Eliana Cai, tied for third and as noted above,
sadly and with tears, went home without a trophy thanks to the failure of BCS
to follow tradition and the practiced by the United States Chess Federation at
their Nationals. Weibel did win second
in the 5-7 Year Age Group Team Championships despite only one player in the 5 and
6 year old sections.
Our young girls are all new to chess this year and with the
grace of Caissa, the outstanding instruction of our teachers as well as their beautiful
comradeship they will flower in the tradition of our past girls’ teams.
Complete results at: http://www.berkeleychessschool.org/tournaments/tournaments-list/weekender-standings/
Loads of photos (soon) at: http://wwwmCalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html
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