THE FORMER DIRECTOR OF WEIBEL CHESS RECEIVES AWARD FOR HIS SCHOLASTIC SERVICE FROM THE U.S. CHESS FEDERATION, THE GOVERNING BODY OF CHESS IN THE NATION

As long as Ted Castro posted the official announcement of my receiving the U.S. Chess Federation Scholastic Service Award on my Timeline and it has been made public by the US Chess Federation I might as well saying something about this honor. I received this information on June 17th but I had been waiting for the actual presentation on August 5th before posting anything.

I have written a long acceptance speech that will likely not be read at the Award Ceremonies. I just wanted to get it down on paper for my own record. A far shorter commentary that my designated recipient Jim Eade, a well known name for his years of service to the chess community and a friend, will present on my behalf at Rancho Mirage, CA on August 5. For those that have a lot of time, here is what I have written to date and only edited twice. I am told by my former colleague and friend Dr. Howard DeWitt that things must be edited 17 times at least

When I read the e-mail that said I was selected to receive the U.S. Chess Federation’ Scholastic Service Award in conjunction with the U.S. Open and Annual meeting I thought it was spam or someone was spoofing me. I decided to check the U.S.C.F website to see if such an award even existed. When I clicked on the USChess.org a message appeared that the site was down while material from the new website was being added. I said to myself, “OK, what else is new.” I tried again the next day and was able to search the site. I came to the realization that the letter was for real and somehow I was actually getting the U.S. Chess Federation’s 2022 Scholastic Service Award.

I will start my thank you’s to those who made this honor possible with Jim Eade who has kindly agreed to play me since I cannot be here. Jim deserves my thanks not just because he is here picking up my award, or that he is one of the best examples of someone who has donated, often without thanks, his energy and time to the chess community, but also because I doubt I would be receiving this honor if it weren’t for him. Back in the early 90’s when Jim was President of CalChess he talked me into joining the Northern California Board as they needed someone there who was working with scholastic players. My mother always had a hard time turning down a request to volunteer her time. Like my mother I often went overboard in my community participation. I loved it! Jim also convinced me to do some writing and submit photos for the very professional CalChess Journal he had created.

There had been no one within the scholastic community on the CalChess Board for quite a while. Hard to believe today when it is hard to find someone for the CalChess Board who is not part of the scholastic community. Jim also got me involved in chess outside of California when he convinced me to serve with him on the University of Texas, Chess Board. We traveled there together and got to know each other fairly well. I did get something quite nice for my short time on that Board. I obtained a blue blazer with the UT Dallas Chess logo. I could then look official when I organized tournaments or served as the Chief TD.

There was a Northern California Scholastic Chair at the time, Ray Orwig, who I was told did not want to serve on the CalChess Board. I call Ray the father of scholastic Chess in Northern California. He not only ran the NorCal Scholastic State Championship but a few USCF scholastic quads in the North Bay. His wife was an Alameda County children’s librarian in the East Bay and she arranged for him to run free, non-rated chess tournaments in most of the libraries there. That is how I met Ray who became an inspiration for everything I have done. My middle son played in one of Ray’s non-rated events and did very well. We then went an hour north to Ray’s rated events and later that school year, 1988-1989, my son in First Grade won the K-3 Championship Division in the States. I decided to take him to the 1989 Elementary School Nationals in Phoenix. I there learned what scholastic chess was all about and saw how well a large tournament could be organized. I later mimicked much of what I saw when I organized our State Championships.

My Weibel Elementary School Chess Club began to grow and parents from other schools in the area began to contact me about how to create a chess club. One year Weibel Chess obtained 240 kids out of 770 children in this districted Elementary School. Very few schools at that time in the southern East Bay and the South Bay had chess programs. I helped them organize. I note that this was before any large chess profit or non-profit scholastic chess businesses came into the area. There was a program in Berkeley that I knew nothing about.

With Ray as an inspiration, I began to hold a few small USCF tournaments. Ray decided to leave his position as Scholastic Chair and later turned over the State Championships to me. I held the Scholastic Chair position for 12 years helping programs develop not just in Northern California but in a few other parts of the country.

When I decided to become active in the chess community, I gave up my position in the American Drug Free Powerlifting Association that I and my training partner had brought to California. I had organized many powerlifting events in the 1970’s and 1980’s including a large National Championship. I started holding a few small chess tournaments instead of powerlifting meets. I found that nearing the senior citizen age it was much easier to move chess equipment than barbells. I decided to even hold a large chess event and I created the California Chess Grade Level Championships which I held at two schools about two miles apart due to the need for space--Weibel Elementary School and Mission San Jose Elementary School. Mission had begun program two years after Weibel. A chess guru in the area, Richard Shorman, influenced the programs in both schools. Both schools did well at the National level and won a number of championship titles.

When Ray Orwig decided not to continue running the NorCal State Scholastic Championships, I took over. I turned the California Grade Level over to CalChess. By that time, an agreement had been reached with the Southern California State that we would take turns running the event.

Tom Dorsch, who had been holding open tournaments for many years in Northern California, which seldom had any scholastic players, became my mentor. He took me with him so I could learn how to negotiate with hotel managers and convention center directors. He also funded the first few scholastic states through his Northern California Chess Tournaments business. Once we moved it from a school site to a hotel the event exploded in the number of players, topping 1300. I left running the States for a few years in 2000 but returned in 2006 when CalChess was having trouble locating a local organizer. CalChess funded the event. I volunteered my time, and all the profit went to CalChess, pulling them out of a financial bind. In 2008 I helped CalChess find a local organizer, Salman Azhar and his Bay Area Chess. I continued running smaller events and working with the local chess community. I recently decided that at 84 years young it was time to step aside from my chess organizing activities.

My wife deserves loads of Kudos for her continued support. I also thank my two youngest sons for without their desire to participate in chess events I would not have been volunteering my time. My oldest son knew how to play chess but made soccer his primary goal in life. I had even helped organize soccer events. Now 53 my eldest cheered when I informed him that the US Chess Federation was providing me with an award for my service to the scholastic chess community. He said: “That is so great. Too often people are not around anymore when an organization recognizes them for their achievements. I am glad you held on.”

I am glad that I held on as well for I can provide my heartfelt thanks to the U.S. Chess Federation for this completely unexpected honor.

A NEW WEIBEL CHESS HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE!

A New Weibel Chess Hall of Fame Inductee: Adrika Kashyap

Adrika Kashyap won the third-grade section of the Girl’s State Championship in Berkeley on Saturday, June 4, 2022. To enter the Weibel Chess Hall of Fame a person must obtain one of the following: a National or State Championship title, qualify for the World Youth Championships, obtain the U.S. Chess Federation or a FIDE title of Expert or higher at or after leaving Weibel, obtain a U.S. Chess Federation rating of 1600+ while still at Weibel. The inductees in the Weibel Chess Hall of Fame are listed from a red banner at the bottom of the Weibel Chess website.

The title “Championship” or “Champion” is only given to someone that wins an open/varsity division. The State and National Championships have numerous other divisions with names like K-6 Under 1000 or Junior Varsity. Winners of these divisions cannot officially call themselves “Champions.” They are first place winners, but certainly champions in their eyes and those of others.

Adrika also was one of the players who enabled Weibel Chess to obtain another school team State Championship in tying for first in the Third-Grade section of the CalChess State Grade Level on May 21, 2022.

The photos below are of Adrika with her championship trophy* and with her teammate Ahana Karaje holding a Grade Level team trophy. Also, in that photo are two former Weibel Chess teachers, Jenny Ly and Bada Norovasambuu who are now teaching at Weibel with Bay Area Chess helping BAC continue the winning ways of our past! Thanks go to Adrika’s parents for the photos.

A plaque existed on one of the walls of the Weibel School office with plates that had the names of the Weibel Chess Hall of Fame members. I do not know if it is still there.

*I was told that this year’s CalChess Girls States did not have any team awards. Weird!

WEIBEL CHESS CONTINUES A 32 YEAR HOT STREAK AT CALCHESS TOURNAMENT!

As most of you know, after 32 years of directing the Weibel Chess program I announced I would retire a month or so before the pandemic hit. I had hoped a committee of parents would continue Weibel Chess following the same principles, vision, and mission. Sadly, for reasons that would take too long to discuss this could not come to pass.

Finally, the Weibel Principal gave Bay Area Chess (BAC) permission to start a chess program again at Weibel that could not be connected to the school as Weibel Chess had been. On February 4 BAC started up chess in three classrooms on Friday afternoons. Salman Azhar, the founder and Chair of BAC, son did attend Weibel for a couple of years, Aamir Azhar in 2004 won the CalChess State Championship. The family moved from Weibel, but the school has always been in Salman’s heart. BAC hired four former Weibel Chess instructors to teach the classes at the school along with a fifth individual. The four are, Grand Master Enrico Sevilliano, Jason Cruz, Jenny Ly and Bada Norovasambu.

In 2007, Salman Azhar took over the CalChess State Championships that I had been running. His Bay Area Chess continues to organize that prestigious and large event. A bit under 20 Weibel students attended the 47th year of the Championships this last weekend, March 19 & 20, 2022. In recent years Weibel Chess had 80 to 100 attendees. Yet, considering the very recent start of chess again at Weibel that was a good turnout. More exciting was how well they did.

As indicated on my Weibel Chess webpage and the back of the T-shirts the players wore, Weibel Chess had won a division in a CalChess sponsored event since 1990. CalChess is the Northern California affiliate of United States Chess Federation. Just a month before my program of Weibel Chess closed its doors for good on March 13, 2020, we won a few sections in a CalChess Girls State Championships. There were no face to face CalChess tournaments in 2021. At the reopening of a CalChess Scholastic Championships with numerous subdivisions students from Weibel proved their nettle once again and kept Weibel’s chess winning streak alive. Most of the students were in the BAC Weibel classes.

The Weibel Teams took first places in the K-3 Beginner and K-3 Junior Varsity sections. NOTE: Only the winners of the Champions sections can be officially referred to as Champions. For some reason most of the top players at Weibel did not attend. For me, as an outsider now, the best news was that girls were the leading players in the two sections Weibel chess students won. Hopefully BAC will be willing to encouraging them to attend the All-Girls Chess National Championships in Chicago in future years and send along a coach. Weibel has won eight All-Girls National Chess since 2011.

Kudos to the following Weibel students at the States:

Team winners – the points of the top four players count for the team. There were five rounds.

K-3 Junior Varsity
Anenya Balakrishnan 4.5 (Anenya also took first place an amazing accomplishment for a young girl that when Weibel Chess closed down was in our Raw Beginners class under the excellent instruction of Amy Chan.)

Adrika Kashyap 3.0 (Adrika also competed the next day in the K-5 JV. She joined because Weibel only had three players and she wanted to help the team. Much to her surprise two of the Weibel players dropped out.)

Sama Bagga 1

K-3 Begginers: Vihaan Kumar 3 Amyra Bhatia 3 Ahana Karaje 2 Tiya Lintu 1.5 Jasper Chung 1.5 (his points did not count for the team)

The following players won individual trophies:

K-5 Championship (46 players) Alexander Pn Ng 3.5 (12th) Lucas Immanuel Oh 3,5 (tied 12th)

K-5 Rookie (54 players) Mihika Agarwal 3 (tied for 11th)

K-3 JrV (40 players) Anenya Balakrisdhnan 4.5 (1st) Adrika Kashyap 3 (tied 10th)

K-3 Beginners (31 players)

Vihaan Kumar 3 (7th) Amyra Bhatia 3 (tied for 7th)

If you want information about chess at Weibel please contact the Director of Bay Area Chess, James Bethany, James@BayAreaChess.com.

I am not connected to their chess program so I cannot provide you with any information or direction. The Weibel Chess Website, the Facebook page and the blog will remain up as an historical memory of the past and anything I decide I want to celebrate about chess at Weibel. Two of my three boys attended Weibel in the beginning of the school and my chess program under the auspices of the PTA and then the PTO existed for 32 years. The umbilical cord has been severed, but a part of my heart is still there with the students, parents, teachers an staff. Salman Azhar and Minanshu Jha (Adrika Kashyap’s mother) provided me with the photos of the winning Weibel Teams. I did attend for a short period of time on Saturday afternoon to watch my grandson competing in the K5 Championship and the K5 Blitz. He had a very poor showing in the K5 Championship but did win the K5 Blitz. That is exactly what I predicted to one coach before the event for he and his dad play blitz most of the time with his Dad playing 1 minute against Elizur’s 5 minutes. As I walked into the Blitz area, they were giving out the trophies and Tom Langland, one of the Chief Tournament Directors told me that Weibel won the K3 JV and they were presenting the awards. He asked if I was going to go up with them for a photo. I simply replied, “No, it is not my program anymore.” I did rush over and shoulder my way through the crown and got one photo with other parents’ hands in it.

WEIBEL CHESS OF YESTERYEAR HAS CEASED TO EXIST!

I regret to report that the 32 years of Weibel Chess as both an educational, recreational and a competitive program has come to an end. My belief that the program would continue with a semblance of the 32-year history I established will not occur. Due to changes in the Fremont Unified School District’s facilities process and a loss of enthusiasm at the school office the hopes I had along with the parent committee have been dashed. I am sure that sometime in the future Weibel Elementary School will have chess taught after school through one of the many chess businesses in the Bay Area. However, I do not believe it will be “Weibel Chess” for these companies, while teaching the basics of chess, are in the end a chess business not a chess school program.

HOW WEIBEL CHESS APPROACHES CREATING BETTER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS!

Earlier today, on an exchange on critical thinking, a friend stated that to learn critical thinking people should learn chess. The comment provided me an opportunity to explain my view on chess teaching and critical thinking. This has been the foundation of Weibel Chess in the past and I hope it will remain the teaching philosophy in the future as I leave the program. Here is what I wrote with a couple of edits: Yes, only if they have an instructor that is interacting with the students and not just talking to the Demo board. As I said earlier, critical thinking isn't taught it is experienced and demands interaction and challenges--thinking about what you are thinking while you are thinking. While chess demands critical thinking, I would also say, that a fair number of the better chess players had "critical thinking" in their blood. Their skills were simply enhanced. I can't prove that, however.

Those of us who have run school chess programs over the years know that a few students sent to the chess classes are there because the parents want babysitters in the afternoon when the school lets out or simply want their child to learn the basics of chess. They are unaware of the studies that show how much chess not only improves analytical thinking but also improves student performance in school courses. Unless you have Socratic like instructors who can challenge every student, they only learn how to move the pieces.

With teachers (not coaches) who can challenge, most of the students want to return. The program does not become, what I refer to as revolving door chess where your instructors teach the same material year after year to new groups of “recruits.” The students return and soon you have different levels of instruction to meet the needs of your little critical thinkers. Stated simply, you have thinkers not stinkers.

Some children get to a level of analyzing, knowledge, and chess skill with a love of the sport and art of the game where they continue to extremely high chess levels where they likely need and often obtain coaches. Weibel Elementary School, a public school limited to one neighborhood, has been blessed to have had several outstanding chess students in its 33year history and has fared well against private schools and open area public schools where they often have a very select group of students. Yet, for all levels of those who learn chess, our slogan says it all, “Chess is Forever!”

A few of the students at Weibel could even "learn" from a demo board talking head, one who seldom if ever looks at or questions/challenges the students, because they love analyzing and studying on their own. I have not kept demo board talking heads. OK, I lied, I did keep one at the school, Hans Poschmann, who you knew well. He was such a warm, loving, and bubbly person, perhaps personified in his playing only one chess opening, "The Orangutang."😂 Please don’t ask me to explain that. 🙃 Hans, RIP, without interacting with the students while always looking at his demo board, somehow brought something else to his students-humanity's warmth & love which I would argue is even more vital than critical thinking.

HOPE TO BEGIN CHESS NEXT WEEK SHATTERED. HOPE REIGNS ETERNAL

I am upset and sad to announce that Weibel Chess cannot begin next week as previously thought. The Parent Teacher Organization CPA advised the Chess Committee against hiring instructors even though the hiring and salaries would be paid by an outside individual with reimbursement from the PTO who would have collected the tuition. The PTO felt they had no choice but to withdraw the permits for they would have had to lay out a substantial amount of money without any knowledge if it would be refunded. The CPA did provide five other possible options. The Chess Committee had held off registration when the PTO, despite getting the go ahead from the Weibel School and the District, expressed concern about reimbursing that individual for the payroll costs and rightly decided to check with their CPA. I decided to wait before posting anything until the Chess Committee met and perhaps came up with a Plan B after discussing the five other options. Last night the Chess Committee decided to go with one of the other options. If this Plan B works, I will post the information. Based on an information sheet that was distributed, there should be no trouble in filling the 45 slots for the Club and the 45 for the Team.

WEIBEL CHESS GETTING CLOSE TO RETURNING FACE TO FACE

Weibel Chess may be up and running again starting Wednesday, October 6, 3 to 4:30 for the Club and Thursday, October 7, 3 to 5 for the Team. Just a couple of things to work out. Keep posted.

The Weibel Chess Committee head, Kwee Kuntjara, just sent the following message from the Principal's newsletter: "Please be aware that no after school/group activities are allowed on school property after school hours (these require permits). No permits have been issued at this time. Thank you for understanding." If there are any changes that might provide us with an opportunity to restart Weibel Chess, I will post news on our Blog and our Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/Weibel-Chess-213022428884018

NORTH AMERICAN YOUTH CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP, AUGUST 16-21, 2021 CHICAGO

Most of you know that for many years Weibel Chess Girls have attended the All-Girls Nationals in Chicago. As you also know our girls won a title every year they attended. Those that attended saw a well-organized tournament. This same group, The Renaissance Knights Chess Foundation, is working together in Chicago with a number of other groups including FIDE (The International Chess Federation) to hold the North American Youth Chess Championships from August 16-21, 2021. I urge all of our Team players to give serious thought to attend. No matter how you fair, and some of you will fair well, you will have an opportunity to participate in an international event of the highest caliber.

The organizers recognize the challenges presented by COVID-19 and are implementing precautionary measures to prevent and reduce the spread of COVID-19 among players and guest at the tournament. Details can be found on the event website.

https://www.naycc2021.com

 

TO MEMBERS OF WEIBEL CHESS 2019-2020 AND OTHER POSSIBLY INTERESTED PARTIES:

I hope all of you are doing well.  I know it has a been a rough year for all of us.  I closed Weibel Chess on Friday, March 13th last year.  The Fremont schools closed a day later, I believe.

I do not doubt that fairly soon the schools will open with safety prodigals in place.   I suspect we will be able to reopen Weibel Chess sometime next Fall.  This will necessitate some changes in the program.

As most of you know I have established a Weibel Chess Committee under the leadership of Kwee Kuntjara for this was to be my last year, after 33 years running the program.  I did not want to turn Weibel Chess over to a for-profit Chess Company (even if some of them are non-profits).  There have been two parent run Fremont school chess programs in our area who did so years back and they have not only lost their school identity, but the number of students participating dropped dramatically.

The Weibel Chess Committee met a few times a fair number of months ago. The Chair of the Committee, Kwee Kuntjara, has set a Zoom meeting for tomorrow, Friday night, March 12, at 7:30 PM.  He and I would like to invite any of you who are interested or might be interested in being a member of the committee to attend or just to observe to please let me know ASAP.  WeibelChess@comcast.net and I will send you the Zoom connection.

For those of you who are looking forward to seeing Weibel Chess back in operation here is a summary of what changes I feel will have to occur due to the still lurking dangers of Covid 19 in the Fall:

Weibel Chess, when we reopen will have to use only the Multi-use Room.  The membership will be limited to between 30 and 45 students with the Club on Tuesday and the same number on the Team on Friday. The hours on the Friday Team meetings will be reduced.   These changes will create good social distancing, better air circulation and clean-up that might need to include disinfectants.

The number of members will be reduced by more than half of those we had.  Of course, without Sixth Grade we would have lost a few members in any case. There will be only a need for three instructors on each day instead of the seven we had for Club and six we had for Team in 2019-2020.  I will hope we can get back three instructors from last year.  Two are no longer in the area and most of those that are now work near full-time for the big Scholastic Chess companies.

The big question is how we will cut off membership.  Those parents who were members in previous years will have first shot until a set date and then Weibel Chess will be open to the Weibel community at large.  I believe that on the Friday Team we should reserve a few spaces for players new to Weibel who have competed in U.S. Chess Federation tournaments and have a rating.

Keep safe and if you have not yet been vaccinate as my wife and I have, I hope you will be able to obtain yours soon.

ALAN KIRSHNER APPEARS ON ON MECHANICS INSTITUTE CHESS SHOW

 Mechanics' Chess Social, Zoom show hosted by the Mechanics Institutes' Chess Director, Abel Talamantez, and the Youth Outreach General Manager, Dr. Judit Sztaray interviewed me on their Friday show about Weibel Chess and some history of youth chess in Northern California. Considering the chess celebrates they had already interviewed here and across the nation I felt truly honored.

If you have a little less than an hour to waste you can see the full interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UymwpqM_Jso&t=1565s/

The Mechanics Institute's Chess Club, founded in San Francisco in 1854, is the oldest chess club in the United States.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UymwpqM_Jso&t=1565s

NO WEIBEL CHESS PROGRAM AT THIS TIME
Sadly, for the first time in 33 years we will not start a Weibel Chess program in September. The FUSD made the only decision they could at this time which is to keep the physical schools closed until there are no new cases in our county for seven days. They showed great human concern for the health of your children, the Weibel School staff and teachers and all of us connected to the schools. The death rate, due to better knowledge and equipment, has been lower than a few months ago. However, the information of the short and long range serious heath damage to those having active cases of COVID-19 along with a new increase in death rates must be of concern for all of us not just those like myself in the high risk categories.
Sadly, I had given serious thought to retiring from Weibel Chess at the end of this year with a transition team shadowing me to learn the process. I figured that no matter how healthy I was, being 83 at the end of this upcoming school year, Weibel Chess needed to have a plan to continue. Initially I thought I might have to turn it over to a chess company, however, this concerned me. Even though the three companies in this immediate area have great love and respect for our program, there is no way, I felt, they could run it separate from their chess business. While I had hoped all along a parent could come forth and follow in my footsteps, none arose until last Spring. Kwee Kuntjara, parent of Sarah and Sabrina, offered to run Weibel Chess with a chess committee totally separate from any chess business keeping it under auspices of the PTO. Officially, since the get go, Weibel Chess has functioned as a committee under the PTO—candidly, as a committee of one.
My hope had been that Kwee and the Weibel parent committee, he established, would shadow me through the transition year. The committee is up and running and they have had a few Zoom meetings. We still have time to prepare the Committee for the transition. While some changes in the physical operation are underway, I have been assured that the mission and goals of the Weibel Chess, I set up as an educator, will not change.
Since there are numerous chess business and clubs running online classes. I do not feel there needs to be a Weibel Chess online program. Besides, even though, I was a pioneer in teaching college course online in the late 1990’s, I do not believe that groups of more than four students can benefit from chess classes online. That is not to say that dedicated experienced chess students can’t benefit, but Weibel Chess has been a program with great instructors who know how to excite and motivated beginners and intermediate chess students in large numbers to enjoy the game, art and fun of playing chess.
If you want help in deciding which online program or chess tournament your child should participate in or how to contact an individual coach, please do not hesitate to contact me via e-mail.
I will miss all the wonderful children, parents, instructors, Weibel staff and faculty that I was looking forward to seeing again in September as well as a large new “crop” of chess players and parents.
STAY SAFE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN!
Chess is Forever,
Alan

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!

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 11^th 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!