Dr. Kirshner's Summer Chess Camp

yes, there is a summer chess camp going on at Weibel this summer.  Well, not at the school, but in the neighborhood.  Dr. Kirshner again is holding his annual development summer chess camp for K-2 Weibel-enrolled students who are going on to the team for the following school year.  The purpose of this camp is to give the kids continuity in their chess studies and to get them a head start in their chess development for next year. 

The first summer semester tournament for this camp is now in the books, and the results are here.  The 2 top finishers are Louis Law and Ryan Song.  Not surprisingly, they are 2 players who play fairly regularly in tournaments.  Note to parents on the team - the way to improve is to play regularly in tournaments, and not just play the minimum amount of tournaments required.

Freedom Open and Norcal House of Chess Quads

Two directors near and dear to the Weibel Chess community are hosting tournaments this weekend.  First, Coach Ted Castro's Norcal House of Chess hosted a scholastic Quads tournament this weekend.  Approximately 30 players played in this tournament. A few of our team members, Vincent, Ryan S and Kevin Z, played in this tournament, mostly with good results. 

The USCF results for this tournament can be found here.

On the advanced/adult side of things, uber tournament director Salman Azhar and Bay Area Chess is hosting the 2nd annual Freedom Open, a 2-day, long time control tournament this weekend over at the Bay Area Chess headquarters in north San Jose.  A number of Weibel team members are present here as well.  Nikhil Jaha, Daniel Ho and Ishas Kekre are all off to good starts, with 1.5 out of 2.0 at the end of the first day.  More on this later.

UPDATE:  Daniel Ho winds up with 3.0 and probably a healthy rating point gain.  Ishas Kekre wound up with 2.5.

Side note, in the Open section, there has been major fireworks, as soon-to-be high schooler and A player Joshua Cao has pulled off 2 major upsets, beating IM Emory Tate and NM Mike Splane so far.  He has been anointed the title of "UM" - Upset Master!

UPDATE:  Joshua continued to be on a roll as he drew with expert Julian Lin, but the good fortune came to an end in the last round against expert Neel Apte, who was on a roll himself, winning all 4 games in the Open section.  A good way to go into the Barber tournament next weekend in Orlando, FL for Neel.

USCF results here.
Standings here.

August 2011 USCF Top 100 List

The August 2011 USCF Top 100 lists are now out, and can be found here.  Ratings based on rating at the end of June.

Weibel Team members on the lists:

#6, Age 9 - Michael Wang - 1884
#15, Age 8 - Anthony Zhou - 1553
#16, Age 10 - Kevin Moy - 1846
#41, Age 9 - Joanna Liu - 1534
#58, Age 10 - Abhishek Handigol - 1621
#72, Age 12 - Justin Wang - 1718
#92, Age 11 - Sameer Vijay - 1618

Girls Under 13:
#36 - Age 9 - Joanna Liu - 1534
#71 - Age 11 - Sharon Lu - 1387
#99 - Age 9 - Desiree Ho - 1271

Pacific Coast Open

The annual Pacific Coast Open is currently being held at the Renaissance Hotel in scenic Agoura Hills, CA, a bit north of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley-Ventura Country region of the state.  Most likely because of Carmageddon, attendance at this event is down about 15% from previous years.  I counted 193 entries, including re-entries and house players, whereas in previous years the attendance was in the 220-240 range.  The hotel is about 15 miles west of Ground Zero for the 405 freeway closure.

As usual, a number of Northern California players have made the 5 1/2 hour road trip down here.  From the Weibel team, Kevin Moy (1854) is the only one here.  And he's doing pretty well, as he has 3.5 out of 4.0 and playing on the top board for Round 5 in the U1900 section.  This is a 6 round event, so there are two more rounds to go on Sunday.  Many Weibel players opted to play in the Bagby tournament over at Mechanics on Saturday.

More updates to follow, if I can procure an internet connection.  Otherwise, I'll update this post with the final results tomorrow.  Perhaps I'll get some pictures as well.

07/17 15:26 Update:   Kevin drew with Steven Morford (1798) in a complicated defensive battle, so he's at 4.0 out of 5.0 going into the final round.  Steven is at the top of the leaderboard at 4.5, with 4 players at 4.0.  So still a decent chance for Kevin to get 1st place if things go correctly.

Update 2 19:30 - typing from an iPad so sorry for the lack of formatting - Kevin won his last game and wound up with 5.0 out of 6.0.

Update 3 07/18 12:00  - Looks like Kevin tied for 1st in U1900, good for $1200.  His rating went over 1900 as well, to 1908.

Tournament results here:    http://www.pacificcoastopen.com/

Interesting side note - juniors got first place in all the upper sections, something fairly rare at a big-money CCA tournament where the majority of the players are adults.  In addition to Kevin, Howard Jed Chen (17 years old) tied for first in the Open Section, and soon-to-be-high schooler Paul Richter tied for first place in the U2100 section.

Master and GrandMaster Summer Camps

Summer is in full swing, and there are many chess camps going on.   There are camps affiliated with Bay Area Chess, Ted Castro, and Chris Torres that are all local in Fremont going on this month.

For the advanced players, there are some camps of note:

This week, July 11-15, there is a master camp (1200 and above) with GM Sam Shankland in Fremont at Mission San Jose Elementary.  Go to bayareachess.com for more details.

On August 1-5, Norcal House of Chess will be hosting a Grandmaster Camp (1600-2100) with GM Dejan Bokjov.  Here are the details for this camp:

Who: Advance players 1600-2100

When: August 1-5 (Mon-Fri)

9 am. to 4 pm. (early and late-pick up are also available)

What: Summer Camp Grandmaster Edition!

Cost: $ 200/half-day (whole week) or $ 370/whole day (whole week); other options are possible -- 3 whole days only, 2 days only, etc.

Where: NorCal House of Chess 47655 Warm Springs Blvd., South Bldg. of Northwestern Polytechnic University (NPU), Fremont, CA 94539.

 

Guest Coach: Grandmaster Dejan Bojkov (2544), former coach of World Champion for Women and excellent professional chess trainer!  A Bulgarian GM who qualified from the Sports Academy of Sofia as a trainer, a profession which he has followed in various countries. After his work as a trainer in Kavala (Greece), he was hired to coach ex World Champion Antoaneta Stefanova. Bojkov has also written more than 30 reports for chessbase.com and chessbase.de. Bojkov was champion of Bulgaria in 2009 and was a member of the Bulgarian team at the European championships in 2009. In cooperation with Vladimir Georgiev he has written "A Course in Chess Tactics" which appeared as a Gambit publication in 2010.

 

 

Also, IM Emory Tate will be teaching a couple of master camps at the Harker School in Cupertino/San Jose on the weeks of July 25-29 and Aug 8-14.  Details at bayareachess.com

 

Finally, Mechanics Institute in San Francisco will be holding their 11th annual Master camp for kids 1200-2200.  Details at http://www.chessclub.org/children/camp.php

Sacramento Chess Championship

The annual 4th of July weekend bash known as the Sacramento Chess Championship will take place this year from July 2 to July 4 in the heart of Sacramento at the Best Western Expo Inn.  As of Friday July 1, there are 56 registrants, including 4 from the Weibel Team - Michael Wang, Kevin Moy, Justin Wang and Anthony Zhou.

Pairings and Standings

Saturday 7/2 update:  just about 100 degrees in Sacramento today.  There are now 72 entrants for this tournament, which is approaching the max that the playing room can hold for players to be seated comfortably.

After 2 rounds, Michael Wang is at .5, playing up in the Open section.  Kevin Moy and Anthony Zhou both are at 1.5 out of 2 in the U2000 section, but both have byes for Rounds 3 and 4.

FINAL RESULTS:

Justin Wang and Kevin Moy both had 4 points in the Reserve Section (U2000) and won $22 each.
Anthony Zhou got 2.5

In the Open Section, Michael Wang wound up with 2.0 points.