Monday, March 31

NorCal Top 100 Lists

Do you recognize these young stars?  All are now masters, and two
won at World Youth U12. Photo from Cam's Chess Blog in 2010.
Almost two years have passed since I completed the last thorough analysis of the Bay Area's representatives on the USCF Top 100 Lists.  The USCF office made two administrative changes: publishing the rankings monthly and moving the cutoff date to the third Wednesday of the previous month (from the first Friday).  Consequently, the player ratings will be more current.

Congratulations to the 119 local youngsters who earned a spot on the national Top 100 rankings for their age.  The most competitive categories appear to be Age 8 and Age 13-14.  At least a dozen Northern California juniors are ranked in Top 100 for each of those three years, including 5 or more in the Top 20!  Many of the same kids represented California and the USA at the World Youth Chess Festival in the United Arab Emirates last December.  Veteran Bay Area players and directors watched the 13-14 year old bunch grow up, and now a new bunch of promising talents has formed. 

Given the explosion in strength of local youths, I began tracking their FIDE ratings.  Indeed, 53 ranked juniors already have earned an official international rating!  Only a decade ago, no more than a half dozen players under age 18 had achieved this goal.  Many thanks to John Donaldson, Richard Koepcke, Salman Azhar, Arun Sharma and other organizers for offering plentiful opportunities to play FIDE rated tournaments without traveling far.

Without further ado, I present the cream of the crop, the best of the west, to earn virtual gold, silver and bronze medals!  Please visit my website for the complete NorCal Top 100 Lists.

Gold Medal (Top 5)
  • Ashritha Eswaran #1 girls U16  
  • Yian Liou #1 age 16 
  • Daniel Naroditsky #1 age 18
  • NM Kesav Viswanadha
  • Balaji Daggupati #3 age 8
  • Josiah Stearman #3 age 10
  • Cameron Wheeler #3 age 13 
  • Gregory Young #3 age 18
  • Andrew Hong #4 age 9
  • Kesav Viswanadha #4 age 14
  • Hans Niemann #5 age 10
  • Rayan Taghizadeh #5 age 11
  • Michael Wang #5 age 12
  • Joanna Liu #5 girls U13
  • Vignesh Panchanatham #5 age 14
Silver Medal (6th to 15th)
  • Arnav Lingannagari age 6
  • Samik Pattanayak age 6
  • Milind Maiti age 8
  • Chinguun Bayaraa age 8
  • Callaghan Mccarty-Snead age 8
  • NM Michael Wang
  • Andrew Peng age 8
  • Tanuj Vasudeva age 12
  • Siddharth Banik age 13
  • Colin Chow age 14
  • Allan Beilin age 14
Bronze Medal (16th to 25th)
  • Kevin Pan age 7
  • Rishith Susarla age 8
  • Maurya Palusa age 8
  • David Pan age 10
  • Udit Iyengar age 13
  • Kevin Moy age 13
  • Pranav Nagarajan age 14
  • Teemu Virtanen age 14
  • Neel Apte age 15
  • Daniel Liu age 16
List adapted from Fpawn Chess
Photo credit Bay Area International

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