JOANNA LIU IS NOW A NATIONAL CHESS EXPERT

My KUDOS to Joanna Liu. After last weekend's Golden State Open in Concord Joanna broke the 2000 (2005) rating barrier and is now a National Expert.  Joanna, a sixth grade student at Gomes, who led her school Team to a National Open Scholastic title last Spring, is a former Weibel student.  Joanna attended Weibel until the middle of fourth grade when her family moved into the Gomes district.  When she left Weibel she had obtained the highest ever rating for a girl in our program, 1587.  This was broken by her good friend Serafina Show last week with her 1613.  I sent the following note to Joanna's father Jay:

"Please congratulate Joanna for reaching the Expert title.  She is only the fourth ever former Weibel student to have obtained an Expert title: Kevin Moy, NM Michael Wang, NM Rohan Agrawal, Micah Fisher-Kirshner.   In my 25 years with chess in NorCal only one young girl has obtained the title of Master.  This was Jennie Frenklakh at 16 back in the 80’s.  I am sure that Joanna will break that record."

BREAKING NEWS: Serafina Show Breaks Record

Serafina Show has just become the highest rated girl ever while at Weibel Chess.  Her present rating is 1613.  The previous best was 1587 (Joanna Liu).  This would definitely place Serafina in our Hall of Fame if  she were not already a member for winning two State Girls Championships.  Serafina also joins two other girls (Jocelyn Lee and Sharon Tseung) who, since 1989, have been the highest rated player participating in our chess team classes on Friday.* KUDOS To Serafina.

*Anthony Zhou, who is a sixth grade student at Weibel, has a current rating of 1810.  He does come to help out the Chess Team on Friday by going over games. He is not taking the classes or playing in our Friday tournament.