Panchanatham, Moy and Fremont Schools Victorious at Elementary Nationals

Vignesh Panchanatham

Kevin Moy

Update on Sunday midday.  Heading into the final round, only one NorCal player has a chance to win his or her section.  Vignesh and his 1945 rated opponent from New York have the only two 5.5s in K-6.  Winner takes all!  Seven local kids check in at 5.0 and can earn a nice big trophy simply by winning the last game.  In team competitions, all eyes are on the 1st graders from MSJE, who remain in 1st, barely ahead of New York powers Hunter and Dalton.  Good luck!!

Final results.  Competing at the Nationals is a challenge for even the very best.  Indeed, the best player may not win.  I tell juniors and their parents that they might score 5.5 or 6.0 by skill, but need luck to finish in the top-3.  By this standard, I offer my kudos  to Rishith, Milind, Agnes, Edwin, Balaji, Chenyi, Jason Z., Michael W. and Abhishek!  Vignesh and Kevin M. finished at an even higher level, sharing first place in the K-6 division (photos by Shorman).  All told, the Northern California delegation combined to win 15 individual trophies in the championship sections!

Here is a special round of applause for the players, coaches and parents at MSJE.  They dominated the CalChess Scholastics across the board.  Three weeks later, the team flew to Nashville and earned a trio of top-7 trophies at National Elementary, including the highest honors in K-1.  Year in and year out, the Mission San Jose chess community is simply amazing!  Way to go Coach Joe Lonsdale!

I would be remiss if I didn't mention another school that (sadly) sat out the CalChess Scholastics.  The highly rated Weibel Elementary team struggled for much of the weekend.  Needing to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the last round, Coach Alan Kirshner gave his best motivational speech.  The four players all won, and the team squeaked into first place on tiebreaks, ahead of two New York City programs.  

Northern California Final Results
Click here for standings and trophies.

K-6 Championship

• Vignesh Panchanatham 6.0 - CO-CHAMPION and 2nd on tiebreaks
• Kevin Moy 6.0 - CO-CHAMPION and 5th on tiebreaks
• Michael Wang 5.5 - 8th place
• Abhishek Handigol 5.5 - 12th place
• Shalin Shah 4.5
• Alvin Kong 4.0
• Anthony Zhou 4.0 
• Sayan Das 4.0
• Eric Zhu 4.0 
• Weibel team - CO-CHAMPION and 1st on tiebreaks
• MSJE team in 6th place

K-5 Championship

• Amit Sant 5.0- 28th place
• Drake Lin 4.0

K-3 Championship

• Chenyi Zhao 5.5 - 13th place
• Jason Zhang 5.5 - 17th place
• Ben Rood 5.0 - 25th place
• John Chan 4.5
• Anvi Surapaneni 4.5
• Mihir Bhuptani 4.0
• Tommy Koh 4.0
• Daniel Mendelevitch 4.0
• Atri Surapaneni 4.0
• MSJE team in 7th place

K-1 Championship

• Rishith Susarla 6.0 - 4th place
• Milind Maiti 6.0 - 8th place
• Agnes William 6.0 - 9th place
• Edwin Thomas 5.5 - 16th place 
• Balaji Daggupati 5.5 - 17th place
• Louis Law 5.0 - 30th place
• Zhiyi Wang 5.0 - 46th place
• Amulya Harish 4.0 
• Oliver Wu 4.0
• Annapoorni Meiyappan 4.0
• Vincent Wang 4.0
• Xander Del Bosque 4.0
• Kevin Pan 4.0
• MSJE team -- CO-CHAMPION and 1st on tiebreaks