National Elementary in Nashville!

The spacious interior of the Gaylord Opryland Resort.

The largest chess tournament in America starts today at the humongous Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville.  No, it is not World Open, but rather the National Elementary Championships.  Over 2,200 players have registered in one of nine sections based on age and rating. 

A total of 47 NorCal kids (plus their parents, siblings and coaches) flew to Nashville for a wild weekend of chess and fun.  About three-fourths of this grand delegation represents two elementary schools from the city of Fremont.  The roster ranges from two 6th grade experts, Vignesh Panchanatham (2127) and Kevin Moy (2015), all the way down to a pair of kindergartners.  Almost all of the Bay Area players entered in the highly competitive "open" sections, meaning no rating restriction.

Stage with trophies lined up in back.

The format is a 7-round swiss with two games today, three on Saturday and the final two on Sunday.  The time control is G/2 hours, meaning someone could potentially play for 12 hours on Saturday.  I will try to follow the top players on my blog at least once a day, which will be challenging given the ongoing US Championship and the World Championship (Anand vs Gelfand).

Update on Friday evening:  By my count, 13 NorCal juniors finished the first day with a perfect score of 2-0.  The three stars in K-6 (Vignesh, Kevin and Michael Wang) all remain in contention for a possible national title! 

Update on Saturday morning:  Most of the top players are still perfect, but that will change as Vignesh is paired against Michael W. in K-6.  CalChess champion MSJE team demonstrates balance across all sections, holding on to three different top-4.

Northern California Watch List
(round 3 of 7)
Click here for standings and pairings.

K-6 Championship

• Vignesh Panchanatham 3.0 (paired against Michael W.)
• Kevin Moy 3.0
• Michael Wang 3.0 (paired against Vignesh)
• Abhishek Handigol 2.5
• Alvin Kong 2.5
• Anthony Zhou 2.0
• Shalin Shah 2.0
• Eric Zhu 2.0
• MSJE team in 4th place

K-5 Championship

• Amit Sant 3.0
• Anjan Das 2.0
• Drake Lin 1.5
• MSJE team in 10th place

K-3 Championship

• Ben Rood 3.0 (playing on board 1)
• Daniel Mendelevitch 2.0
• John Chan 2.0
• Chenyi Zhao 2.0
• Jason Zhang 2.0
• Luke Zhao 2.0
• Soorya Kuppam 2.0
• Mihir Bhuptani 2.0
• Tommy Koh 2.0
• MSJE team in 3rd place

K-1 Championship

• Rishith Susarla 3.0
  
• Agnes William 3.0
• Oliver Wu 3.0
• Milind Maiti 2.0
• Balaji Daggupati 2.0
• Louis Law 2.0
• Zhiyi Wang 2.0
• MSJE team in 2nd place