WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS AT THE AGE LEVEL 2015

WEIBEL CHESS TEAMS AT THE  AGE LEVEL 2015

I am so proud of our Weibel players.  A coach, even a perfectionist coach like myself, could not be happier based on the results of the Weibel individual players and our Teams at the CalNorth Youth Age Level this weekend.  I know the school and the Unified School District will be thrilled at the success of the Weibel Chess Team.  This was tough competition and most of our students played like tigers.  Four hundred and thirty one players from over 40 schools participated.  Actually, over 500 registered.  Yes, at least 70 players failed to show.  I believe the weather had a bit to do with this, but I also think many didn’t show because of the large number of early registrants who forgot they signed up.  Numerous e-mails were sent to remind people of the competition, but I am sure like many of my e-mails they landed in spam folders.

I send my Kudos as well to the parents who spent the last few weeks preparing their children for the competition and seeing that they studied.  My thanks to instructors for their excellent work in training their students. 

There were trophies to 15 places in each division with trophies for ties at 15th place.  Three unrated trophies were given to three individuals who never played in a United States Chess Federation Tournament before and did not win one of the 15 trophies in their division.  The top three Teams also received awards.  I am going to simply list the trophy winners.  To view the full standing, the USCF ratings and photographs of the Championships you can go to http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html

No team trophies were awarded in the 4-5 Age Group or the Invitational Divisions. Weibel Chess Teams, in all the rest, minus two-well maybe minus one, took first place.  OK, we tied for first place in the 9 year old division with Warm Springs, however their top players are all Weibel trained.  Yup, in the 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 year old sections our players took home the championship titles.  In a sense they did in the 12 year old section as well.  The first place trophy went to Horner Junior High School and the three former Weibel players stood tall.  Tierra Linda Junior High School from San Carlos won the 13 year old Championships.

In the four and five year old division, Weibel had five players: , Akarsh Khare, Farhan Ali, Kevin Xu, Krishank Sardesai, Avnita Paul.  All brought home trophies.  The star of the 4-5 Age Group was Akarsh Khare who came in second only a half point from first place.  He drew the winner, Issac Lee of Gomes.   Farhan Ali took seventh.   Kevin Xu got tenth.  Krishank Sardesai placed eleventh and Avnita Paul twelfth.

Six of our players in the six year old division came home with trophies. Aakash Koneru, Edward Miu and Nikko Lee all tied for third.   Avyukt Bhardwaj, Ekansh Samanta and David Gao all tied for ninth.

Our seven year olds came away with a four way tie for fourth: Mihir Gadre, Chau-Ha Nghiem, Reyansh Samanta and Yesun Lee.  Nik Sadeghi, Rutansh Pathak and Vincent Yang tied for thirteenth.

The ties continued in the eight year old division.  Umesh Gopi, Justin Wu and Prisha Jain all tied for third place.

Eshan Prakash was our hero in the nine year old division.  He tied for first place.  Irene Xu and Sidhant Chaliha tied for 15th place.

Our Warm Springs Team players who we tied for first place with and learned at Weibel are: Alex Chen (3rd),  Ryan Dai (3rd), Tiger Yang (15th), Ricky Lin (15th). 

Aaron Lee shined in the ten year old division.  He not only tied for first place he won the playoff for the large first place trophy in a blitz (5 minute chess) game.   Stanley Ko had a good tournament as well tying for third place. Kripa Kini, Frederick Zhang and Yash Pradhan all tied for fifth place.

Four of our player came out in third place in the eleven year old division, only one point out of first: Amirah Mohamed Rafi, Prithvi Nagamanivel, Amy Chan, Rahul Ravishankar.

Former Weibel students did well in the 12 and 13 year old division even though they are now in Junior High School: Ambika Tiwari (4th in 12),   Avi Khanna (4th in 12), Praveen Ravindar (4th in 12), Avikam Chauhan (12th  in 12), Akshay Gharpure (5th in 13th)

A fair number of our top players entered the new format Age Level Invitational for longer time controls and to obtain an international chess rating.

In the 4-9 Open Weibel Chess students had the following results: Sidarth Raman (9th),  Eshaan Mistry (13th), Dharshan Vetrivelan (15th), Aaron Hu (15th)

Last year’s Kirshner Cup winner in the 4-9 Open took second this year in the 10-13  Orwig Cup Open.  Oliver Wu lost to an individual he had beaten many times before, Rishith Susarla of Mission San Jose Elementary School.   Louis Law tied for eight but made a big jump in his USCF rating due to defeating some much higher rated opponents.   Zayaan Khan took thirteenth. Jeremy Chen, Suryateja Mandadi and Shivangi Gupta (this year’s Girls State Champion) did not have great tournaments, but still brought home trophies for tying at fifteenth place.

If I left anyone out, please please forgive me.  I am still not recovered from the weekend helping Carl Moy run this successful tournament.   I would have gotten this out sooner, but I have been sleeping a lot the last few days.  I guess that is what happens when you become an Ancient. ;-)

REPORT ON WEIBEL AT THE CALCHESS GIRLS STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

I would like to start my report by thanking all the parents who drove their daughters and their friends to San Rafael on Saturday, January 31.  I am sure they were surprised that getting there was not like driving to the end of the earth.  However, the trip home was another thing as I am sure you felt you Fremont was the end of the earth.  The traffic was bumper to bumper from San Rafael through the Berkeley corridor.   It took me more than twice the time to get back to Fremont as getting to the Mark Day School in the morning.  I think the only saving grace the parents had was that they had a great day enjoying the success of their daughters and the Weibel Team.

As I wrote in an earlier note to the Weibel Community and on Facebook, the Team won both the 2-3 and the 4-6 grade sections.  In the K-1 division we placed second, a half point behind Mark Day School.   Prisha Jain in the 2-3 and Shivangi Gupta in the 4-6 were the only two players to win all their games.  They both became State Champions in their respective divisions.  Both had to play their teammates to obtain their titles. 

Prisha Jain, a third grade student, defeated Weibel’s Erin Law, our top 
second grade player, in the third round to move on to the final.  Erin’s only loss was to Prisha.  My pleasant surprise was to see a Weibel student, I did not know well, Isha Varada, in third grade, also finish with only one loss.  Erin and Isha tied for second place and took home trophies.  The organizer Ray Orwig provided medals for the top second grade students who did not win trophies.  Weibel’s Chau-Ha Nghiem, Yesun Lee and Elena Xu tied for this award.

In the Kindergarten through First Grade section the only two girls we had in this division took home trophies for tying for fourth place, Mihika Deshpande, in first grade, and Mai-Ha Nghiem, in Kindergarten. They both played extremely well for their first big meet.  They will join our 2-3 girls as future
stars replacing the absolutely wonderful group of sixth grade girls that are leaving us at the end of this school year.  I anticipate that before they leave they will also do Weibel proud in the Polgar Girls Championships on February 28 and March 1 in San Mateo and then help continue our winning streak in the Under 12 division of the All-Girls Nationals in Chicago over the weekend of  April 17 through April 19. 

Ray Orwig, the organizer of the meet, as he was giving out the award commented on the excellent chess played at the tournament this year.  He then specifically mentioned a game we both watched in the 4-6 division that will last in our memories for a long time.  If there was a super star chess player award both Ray and I would have given it to Enya Mistry.  In  round three, Enya played the top student from Berkeley Chess School rated who was over 100 points more.  Enya played like a Tigress—focused and sure of herself.  As the game approached its conclusion Enya’s opponent had only two seconds left on her clock.  Many lesser players would have toyed with their opponent waiting for the clock to fall.  Not Enya.  With determination and confidence she moved with clarity of purpose and proceeded to trade off her pieces checkmating her opponent with her king and her rook. 

This win now meant that Enya had to play Shivangi Gupta in the last round for the Championship.   Shivangi moved on to the championship match by defeating her good friend and teammate Anvi Surapaneni in a match that should not have been.  Sadly, the tournament director was not familiar with the USCF Rule Book on not pairing teammates until the last round.  He also did not carefully examine the pairings to see that there were two non-Weibel players in the same score group that got paired together.  I take blame, in part, for what occurred.  I was outside going over a couple of younger players games while eating my lunch and enter the playing hall just seconds before the round was to start.  I brought it to his attention just before he was going to start the round.  He did not repair the group.  

Shivangi defeated Anvi after, I am told, she offered her a draw that Anvi turned down.  I told Enya
and Shivangi that they should play for a win in the championship game.  If they did not a three way tie would result and that would mean a student that had not played any of the top Weibel players would become a co-champion.  Shivangi, as I mentioned earlier, won the championship taking home the first place trophy.  Enya, Anvi and Amirah Mohamed Rafi, also from Weibel, tied for third place.  The top fourth grade player medal in this four through sixth grade division went to Weibel student, Sophia Zhu.

Weibel had 24 girls in this event. While I have only mentioned those Weibel students who won awards, I want to note that I am proud of all the girls.  Most won at least 50% of their games and not one of our students lost all of their games.  As your Principal Catherine Strommen wrote after receiving my short note on your successes: “Congratulations Weibel girls!!”

RESULTS AND PHOTOS WILL BE FOUND SOON @ http://www.CalNorthYouthChess.org/photographs.html
Enkijen Vs Enya Jan 31 2015 - Annotation by Enya Mistry: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d3Bc5 5. Nc3 Normal four knights opening with guicco piano. 5... d6 6. h3 Be67. Bb3 h6 8. Be3 very mundane opening. couldn't get less exciting. 8... Bb6 9. O-OO-O 10. Ne2 Interesting move. I have never seen a person play that, in the little experience i have. It seems that my opponent wants to make her 2 knights very dangerous. 10... d5 a counterattack 11. exd5 Nxd5 12. Bxb6 I think this was a bad move because it gives me a chance to open my rook and put pressure on the a2 pawn. This also gave me an open file to do anything i want with my rook while her rook was trapped in her own pawns. 12... axb6 13. Ng3 now she is putting her knights into the play 13... Nf4This move was a waiting move. This was so that my queen could go to g6 and then i could put pressure on the knight and possibly win a pawn.  14. Bxe6 Nxe6 15. Re1 f6This opened my king side, but he doesn't have a white squared bishop, so it is no problem. 16. Nh4 now i can't move my queen out. 16... Qd4 but i moved it out with a threat. I either win a knight or a pawn. 17. Qg4 she counterattacked. If i take the pawn on b2, she takes my knight WITH a check. Therefore, she would be up in material and would start invading my pawns and kingside. 17... Qxg4 18. hxg4 Nb4 Instead i found a counterattack. 19. Re2 Nxa2 I took with the knight to perhaps move it out, and attack the hanging rook with a discovered attack. 20. c3 Her plan was to move b4 after this to get my knight, but then i would play Nxc3, so i am fine ....for now. 20... Nf4 21. Rd2 Rfd8 22. Rad1Rd7 My plan is to move the other rook to d8, threatening to take the pawn, but then my knight was hanging, so i need to figure out a way to get my knight out. 23. Ne2 Nxe2+24. Rxe2 b5 This enables me to move to b4, and if he takes, my knight can take back and be free, and if she doesn't, i win an extra pawn with : bxc3, bxc3, Nxc3. 25. Nf5 b426. cxb4 Nxb4 My knight is free!!! 27. d4Rad8 She can't take my pawn because then i take her rook with a check. 28. Red2 c5This puts more pressure on the d4 pawn, threatening to take the d4 pawn with a tempo. 29. d5 excellent move. If nxd5, rxd5,rxd5, Ne7+, winning the rook to fork. 29... Kf7 30. d6 b5 Now i am planning to bombard the queen side area and possibly promote. 31. b3 I don't know why she moved that, it was a waste of tempo. 31... c4 32. bxc4 bxc4 33. Rc1Rc8 34. Ne3 c3 35. Rdd1 Ke6 36. Nf5Nd5 This blocks the white pawn from anymore guarding. This will let me win the pawn later on in the game.  37. Rd3 h538. f3 hxg4 39. fxg4 g6 40. Ng3 Rxd641. Ne4 Rdc6 42. Kf1 Her king will never be able to get to my pawn because if she moves Ke2, i fork her king and rook. 42... f543. gxf5+ gxf5 44. Ng5+ Ke7 45. Ke1e4 46. Rh3 she was planning to keep checking my king and waste time because she had 3 minutes remaining while i had 7 minutes 46... Nf6 47. Re3 At this point i stopped notating because i had 3 minutes on my clock. I ended up winning in a rook and king endgame. Before, she had a knight, but i pinned her king to the knight and i won her knight. she made that mistake because of time pressure. she had 13 seconds on her clock. i played till the end with 10 seconds remaining on my side of the clock.