Bay Area Teenage Mutant Chess Masters

Future GMs: Daniel Naroditsky (white) squares off against Sam Shankland in 2007.

Over the past decade, the Bay Area has become an incubator for the development of young chess talents.  Indeed, school age masters used to be a rare breed, with no more than one or two gracing local tournaments at the same time.  This changed at the 2006 CalChess Scholastics, which saw a quartet of masters compete in the K-12 section.  Moreover, two of the experts participating that year would go on to earn the highest title in chess: Grandmaster!

Today, the roster of teenage masters has mutated.  It no longer numbers in single figures, but rather in the 20s!  Only a few states around the country can boast that many adult masters.  Some of the most talented juniors earn the NM title already at age 10 or 11.

NorCal K-12 Masters (Age and January 2016 USCF rating)

1. FM Wheeler, Cameron (15) 2436 (photo at right)
   
2. IM Viswanadha, Kesav (16) 2416
3. FM Panchanatham, Vignesh (15) 2415
4. NM Zhu, Jack Qijie (17) 2313
5. FM Taghizadeh, Rayan (13) 2312
6. NM Hong, Andrew Z (11) 2306
7. NM Banik, Siddharth G (15) 2265
8. NM Jirasek, Ladia (15) 2257
9. NM Zhao, Art (16) 2242
10. WIM Eswaran, Ashritha (15) 2238
11. NM Beilin, Allan J (16) 2231
12. NM Virtanen, Teemu (16) 2230
13. NM Klotz-Burwell, Hunter (17) 2225
14. NM Bick, Gabriel J (16) 2223
15. NM Wang, Michael (14) 2217
16. NM Nagarajan, Pranav (16) 2217
17. NM Chow, Colin (16) 2209
18. NM Apte, Neel (17) 2205
19. NM Iyengar, Udit (15) 2205
20. NM Stearman, Josiah P (12) 2203 (photo at right)
21. nm Wang, Michael Lei (16) 2196*
22. FM Vasudeva, Tanuj (14) 2186*
23. nm Liu, Daniel (18) 2159*

 * previously broke 2200, but slipped back down

In addition, several local juniors have been awarded the Candidate Master title by the World Chess Federation in recognition of excellent performance at international youth tournaments.  These young stars are well on track to become masters themselves.

• CM Senthilkumar, Pranav (13) 1975
• CM Bayaraa, Chinguun (10) 1889 (photo at right)
• WCM Garai, Antara (11) 1821
• WCM Zhao, Chenyi (12) 1775
• CM Nachiappan, Aghilan (8) 1743
• WCM Eswaran, Aksithi (9) 1709

Make sure to check out the NorCal Top 20 Juniors at my chess teaching website.
Photo credit: Richard Shorman at ChessDryad.

NorCal Top 20 Elementary

NM Andrew Hong. By Chessdryad

nm Josiah Stearman. By Daily Cal

Top 20 Elementary

(Age 11 & Under)

1. NM Hong, Andrew Zhang (10) 2255
2. nm Stearman, Josiah Paul (11) 2100
3. Pan, David (11) 2087
4. Daggupati, Balaji (10) 2010
5. Feng, Justin (11) 1993   



CM Chinguun Bayaraa. By Chessdryad

6. CM Bayaraa, Chinguun (9) 1977
7. Susarla, Rishith (10) 1906
8. Maiti, Milind (9) 1899
9. Somalwar, Anaiy (10) 1887
10. Chang, Eliam Huai-Yang (11) 1874   
11. Palusa, Maurya (9) 1831
12. Peng, Andrew (9) 1831   
13. Mccarty-Snead, Callaghan (9) 1817
14. Zhao, Chenyi (11) 1815
15. Sartorio, William Jiarui (10) 1814
16. Ho, Stephen R (11) 1813   
17. Zhang, Jason Shuhe (11) 1810   
18. Pan, Kevin (9) 1807
19. WCM Garai, Antara (11) 1804
20. Yoo, Christopher Woojin (8) 1761   

Check out this table for rating changes over the past year and FIDE ratings. 
Generated from the USCF Top 100 lists.
Last updated using the April 2015 supplement.

Three Superb National Champs!

Siddharth Banik (by Shorman)

Rayan Taghizadeh (by Shorman)

The last pawn has been pushed and one more Scholar's Mate was played.  Mercifully for the directors and parents, the fifth SuperNationals has drawn to a close.  Some kids proudly show off their shiny trophies while others bemoan lost opportunities.  Regardless of their final score, fond memories of a weekend in Nashville will remain for many years for the record 5,335 participants.

Once again, the delegation from Northern California--82 players strong-- has left their mark.  Out of seven championship sections, three were won by Bay Area stars.  Many hearty congratulations go to Siddharth Banik (K-8), Rayan Taghizadeh (K-5) and Chinguun Bayaraa (K-1)!  Andrew Hong (K-3) scored 6.5/7, but alas, that proved sufficient only for 2nd place.  In K-9, FM Cameron Wheeler and NM Vignesh Panchanatham fought valiantly with aspirations of a tie for 1st, but both succumbed in the final hour of the 7th round.

Two teams captured national titles.  Mission San Jose Elementary of Fremont competed in K-1, K-3, K-6 and K-8 (if you count Hopkins Junior High).  Amazingly, they finished Top 5 in all four sections, and captured a surprising 1st place in K-6 (ahead of I.S. 318)!  Coach Joe Lonsdale has conducted a championship team for several years, incredibly with a different bunch of students each time.  Crosstown rival Gomes Elementary already tasted success at the annual CalChess Scholastics, and now they upgraded by winning K-5 nationals!  Last year's K-8 national champions from Kennedy Middle competed in K-9 and came within a half point of a repeat performance.

• Full Standings and Trophy Winners
• USCF Rating Report

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Final Standings

K-12 Championship (327 players)

Taylor McCreary - 3.5

K-9 Championship (145 players)

FM Cameron Wheeler (KENN) - 5.5 - 5th place trophy
NM Vignesh Panchanatham - 5.5 - 6th place trophy
Pranav Srihari (KENN) - 5.0 
Joshua Cao - 4.5
Justin Wang (IRVG) - 4.5
Daniel Ho (IRVG) - 4.0
Solomon Ruddell - 4.0
Vikram Vasan - 4.0
Arhant Katare (KENN) - 4.0
Nikhil Jaha (IRVG) - 3.0
Kingsley Wang (KENN) - 3.0
Amarinder Chahal (IRVG) - 2.5
Kennedy Middle School - 17.5/28 - 2nd place team
Irvington High School - 14.0/28 - 6th place team

K-8 Championship (256 players)

Siddharth Banik - 6.5 - NATIONAL CHAMPION
Allan Beilin - 5.5 - 6th place trophy
Armaan Kalyanpur (HOPK) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Shalin Shah (HOPK) - 4.0
Isaac Ruddell - 4.0
Alvin Kong (HOPK) - 4.0
Eric Zhu (HOPK) - 4.0
Hopkins Junior High School - 17.0/28 - 5th place team

K-6 Championship (198 players)

Amit Sant (MSJE) - 5.5 - 13th place trophy
FM Tanuj Vasudeva - 5.0 - 15th place trophy
Christopher Pan (MSJE) - 4.0
David Pan (MSJE) - 4.0
Anjan Das (MSJE) - 3.0
Mission San Jose Elementary - 16.5/28 - NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

K-5 Championship (355 players)

Rayan Taghizadeh - 6.5 - NATIONAL CHAMPION
Anthony Zhou (WEIB) - 5.5 - 22nd place trophy
Ganesh Murugappan (GOME) - 5.5 - 23rd place trophy
Joanna Liu (GOME) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Jason Zhang (GOME) - 5.0 - honorable mention
William Sartorio (GOME) - 4.5 - U1400 class prize 
Daniel Mendelevitch - 4.5
Atri Surapaneni (WEIB) - 4.0
Serafina Show (WEIB) - 4.0
Jeremy Chen (WEIB) - 3.5
Gomes Elementary School - 20.0/28 - NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
Weibel Elementary School - 17.0/28 - 8th place team

K-3 Championship (278 players)

Andrew Hong - 6.5 - 2nd place trophy
Milind Maiti - 5.5 - 9th place trophy
Chenyi Zhao - 5.5 - 18th place trophy
Rishith Susarla (MSJE) - 5.0 - 20th place trophy
Ben Rood - 5.0 - honorable mention
Zhiyi Wang - 5.0 - honorable mention 
Callaghan Mccarty-Snead - 4.5
Oliver Wu (WEIB) - 4.5
Louis Law (WEIB) - 4.0
Annapoorni Meiyappan (MSJE) - 4.0
Kavya Sasikumar (MSJE) - 4.0
Jeffrey Liu (MSJE) - 4.0
Eshaan Mistry (WEIB) - 3.0
Aaron Lee (WEIB) - 3.0
Mission San Jose Elementary - 17.0/28 - 5th place team
Weibel Elementary School - 14.5/28 - 9th place team

K-1 Championship (349 players)

Chinguun Bayaraa - 7.0 - NATIONAL CHAMPION
Maurya Palusa - 6.0 - 8th place trophy
Pradyum Chitlu (WEIB) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Stephen He (MSJE) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Weslie Chen (WEIB) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Aidan Chen (MSJE) - 5.0 - honorable mention
Arnav Lingannagari (MSJE) - 4.5
Kevin Pan (MSJE) - 4.5
Vasudeva Rao (MSJE) - 4.0
David Sartorio - 4.0
Allyson Wong (MSJE) - 4.0  
Erin Law (WEIB) - 3.5
Aaron Hu (WEIB) - 3.0
Mission San Jose Elementary - 19.0/28 - 5th place team
Weibel Elementary School - 16.5/28 - 11th place team 

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If you find a typo or someone else worthy of mention here, please email me.

SuperNationals Update #3

The evening round on Saturday is often very difficult, for two reasons.  First, it is the third round of high pressure competition in one day.  Second, the top contenders begin to square off against each other.  After the dust settled, two Bay Area kids remain perfect: Rayan Taghizadeh and Chinguun Bayaraa.  Five more stand at 4.5/5 with a shot at earning a share of first in their section, including masters Cameron Wheeler and Vignesh Panchanatham, both in K-9.

Unlike recent years, none of the Bay Area school teams appear poised to win a national championship.  Still, four teams are currently in the Top 4: Kennedy Middle School in K-9 (3rd and 2.0 behind leaders), Hopkins Junior High in K-8 (4th and 3.0 behind leaders), Mission San Jose Elementary in K-6 (4th and 3.5 behind leaders) and again MSJE in K-1 (3rd and 2.0 behind leaders).

Sunday is crunch time!  The games begin early--at 7am PDT.  Good luck to all!

BREAKING NEWS from Nashville: Siddharth Banik won K-8, Rayan Taghizadeh won K-5 and Chinguun Bayaraa won K-1!!! Congratulations to all three National Champions!  

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Standings After Round 5
After Round 6 in Blue
Click here for Pairings and Standings

K-12 Championship (327 players)

Taylor McCreary (1837) - 3.0 - 3.0

K-9 Championship (145 players)

FM Cameron Wheeler (2291) - 4.5 - 5.5! in three-way tie for first
NM Vignesh Panchanatham (2202) - 4.5 - 5.5! also in the three-way tie
Joshua Cao (2030) - 4.0 and defeated #2 seed NM Velikanov (2293) - 4.5
Daniel Ho (1856) - 3.5 - 4.0  
Pranav Srihari (1884) - 3.0 - 4.0
Justin Wang (1714) - 3.0 - 3.5
Kennedy Middle School - 4 players - 15.5/24 and in 2nd place (1.0 behind)
Irvington High School - 4 players - 12.5/24 and in 6th place

K-8 Championship (256 players)

Allan Beilin (2161) - 4.5
Siddharth Banik (2117) - 4.5 - 5.5!
Armaan Kalyanpur (1933) - 4.0
Alvin Kong (1662) - 3.0 
Shalin Shah (1615) - 3.0
Sayan Das (1411) - 3.0
Hopkins Junior High School - 6 players - 13.0/20 and in 4th place

K-6 Championship (198 players)

FM Tanuj Vasudeva (2150) - 4.0 - 5.0 and playing on board 2
Amit Sant (1735) - 3.5 - 4.5
David Pan (1503) - 3.0 - 3.5
Mission San Jose Elementary - 8 players - 13.0/24 and in 3rd place

K-5 Championship (355 players)

Rayan Taghizadeh (2021) - 5.0 - 5.5! in four-way tie for first
Joanna Liu (1847) - 3.5 - 4.5
Ganesh Murugappan (1761) - 3.5 - 4.5
Anthony Zhou (1741) - 3.5 - 4.5
Jason Zhang (1497) - 3.0 - 4.0
Daniel Mendelevitch (1405) - 3.0 - 4.0
Atri Surapaneni (1345) - 3.0 - 4.0
William Sartorio (1358) - 2.5 - 3.5
Gomes Elementary School - 5 players - 16.5/24 and in 5th place (and tied for first!)
Weibel Elementary School - 6 players - 14.5/24 and in 8th place

K-3 Championship (278 players)

Andrew Hong (1692) - 4.5 - 5.5! and playing on board 2
Milind Maiti (1612) - 4.0 and beat World U8 bronze medalist Christopher Shen (1866) - 4.5
Rishith Susarla (1609) - 4.0 - 5.0
Chenyi Zhao (1558) - 4.0 - 4.5
Callaghan Mccarty-Snead (1485) - 4.0 - 4.5
Oliver Wu (1366) - 3.5 - 3.5
Ben Rood (1798) - 3.0 - 4.0
Annapoorni Meiyappan (1225) - 3.0 - 4.0
Zhiyi Wang (1170) - 3.0 - 4.0
Kavya Sasikumar (823) - 2.5 - 3.5
Mission San Jose Elementary - 6 players - 15.5/24 and in 3rd place (only 0.5 behind)
Weibel Elementary School - 4 players - 11.5/24 and in 11th place

K-1 Championship (349 players)

Chinguun Bayaraa (1644) - 5.0 - 6.0!! and still occupying board 1
Maurya Palusa (1306) - 4.0 after losing to Chinguun - 5.0
Stephen He (808) - 4.0 - 4.0
Pradyum Chitlu (806) - 4.0 - 4.0
Aidan Chen (781) - 4.0 - 4.0
Weslie Chen (664) - 4.0 - 4.0
Allyson Wong (236) - 4.0 - 4.0 
Kevin Pan (1277) - 3.5 - 3.5
Arnav Lingannagari (494) - 3.5 - 4.5
Erin Law (377) - 2.5 - 3.5 
Mission San Jose Elementary - 8 players  - 16.5/24 and in 6th place
Weibel Elementary School - 4 players - 14.5/24 and in 12th place

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If I missed anyone worthy of mention, please email me or leave a message on Facebook.

New National Champions In Our Midst

Orlando World Center Marriott Hotel

The National Grade Level Championships took place last weekend in Orlando.  A total of 1300 players flew in from around the country to play chess and visit the House of Mouse.  The main tournament went 7 rounds over 3 days, with competitors divided into grades K through 12th.

Thirteen Bay Area juniors and their parents made the trek to Florida.  The trip proved successful, and the local delegation brought home 11 trophies: six top 10 places, two honorable mentions, two rating class prizes and one big team trophy. 

Special congratulations to the two individual national champions: Chinguun Bayaraa in 1st grade and Andrew Hong in 2nd grade!  Andrew is the new kid on the block, attending his first chess tournament merely five months ago.  By comparison, Chinguun proved himself as a veteran, playing chess since age 3 and winning his second nationals after Kindergarten last year.

The 7th grade team from Kennedy Middle School earned two individual prizes and picked up a nice team trophy to store alongside the first place K-8 award from last April.  Indeed, they finished ahead of national power IS 318 from the Bronx.  Check out reports and photos at Cameron's blog.

Northern California Scores
USCF Rating Report

• Gr 1 - Chinguun Bayaraa 6.0 - co-NATIONAL CHAMPION 
• Gr 1 - Maurya Palusa 5.5 - 8th place
• Gr 2 - Andrew Hong 6.5 - co-NATIONAL CHAMPION
• Gr 2 - Rishith Susarla 6.0 - 4th place
• Gr 3 - Chenyi Zhao 5.0 - honorable mention
• Gr 5 - Jason Hong 4.0 - 1st 1000-1199
• Gr 5 - Simona Nayberg 4.0
• Gr 6 - Amit Sant 5.0 - honorable mention
• Gr 7 - Cameron Wheeler 5.5 - 5th place
• Gr 7 - Art Zhao 5.5 - 6th place
• Gr 7 - Kingsly Wang 4.5 - 1st 1200-1399
• Gr 7 - Pranav Srihari 4.0
• Gr 7 - Kennedy Middle (Cameron, Kingsly, Pranav) - NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
• Gr 9 - Joshua Cao 4.5

October Top 100 Lists

Udit Iyengar and Cameron Wheeler

I cannot believe that a full year has passed since my last report on the CalChess juniors ranked among the national Top 100 in each age. Alas, my previous blog post was indeed October 2010. My apologies! Without further ado, here are the PDF links everyone has patiently waited for.

• CalChess Top Age Lists
• CalChess Top 20 Lists

A total of 111 local students earned national recognition for their age, actually 2 less than a year ago. Another 8 girls appeared on the girls-only rankings. The most populous age groups were 11 years old (17 ranked, including 5 of the top 17) and 7 & under (15 ranked, including 5 age 6 and 2 age 5). No doubt this is a credit to the numerous school programs, concentrated in the South Bay.

The CalChess Top 20 lists keep growing stronger each month, despite the June graduation of four of the best high school players. Like last year, 16 kids are rated over 2000 USCF, a number already guaranteed to increase on the December supplement. Even more stunning is that 9 of 11 experts (2000-2199) are in middle school! Specifically, watch out for Kennedy Middle School at nationals, with top four players all currently rated above 2100 on MSA! (That's stronger than most high schools.) Finally, don't forget America's youngest master of all time, NM Samuel Sevian, who less than a year later is knocking on the door to 2300.

Ben Rood

In previous posts about the USCF Top 100 Lists, I created an unofficial medal system to honor the most talented CalChess juniors. Of course, those ranked #1 deserve an extra special mention. 15-year old IM Daniel Naroditsky falls somewhere between Superman and a 600 lb gorilla, considering that he has been at the top for some six years straight. On the other hand, 7-year old Ben Rood is the new kid on the block, winning both the CalChess 1-3 Championship and National K-1 Championship this year on the way to an impressive 1731 rating. Lastly, Chinguun Bayaraa starts off as the highest rated 5-year old in the country! Way to go Danya, Ben and Chinguun!

While only three #1s live in the Bay Area, there still are many star juniors. In fact, someone represents the Top 6 on every age list save two. (The exceptions are 13 and 17 years old.) Moreover, I counted two #2s and three #3s, all but one who reached the top before. With these statistics out of the way, let me announce the gold, silver and bronze medal winners! 14 gold, 17 silver and 9 bronze! (My students appear in bold and italics.)

IM Daniel Naroditsky

GOLD MEDAL (top 6)
Chinguun Bayaraa (#1 age 5)
Agnes William (#2 age 5)
Rishith Susarla (#4 age 6)
Ben Rood (#1 age 7)
Josiah Stearman (#6 age 8)
Michael Wang (#5 age 9)
Rayan Taghizadeh (#6 age 9)
NM Samuel Sevian (#2 age 10)
Cameron Wheeler (#3 age 11)
Jack Zhu (#6 age 12)
NM Yian Liou (#3 age 14)
IM Daniel Naroditsky (#1 age 15)
NM Gregory Young (#2 age 16)
IM Steven Zierk (#3 age 18)

SILVER MEDAL (top 17)
Solomon Ge (#9 age 8)
Anthony Zhou (#12 age 8)
Leyton Ho (#10 age 9)
Jeffrey Tao (#12 age 10)
FM Tanuj Vasudeva (#15 age 10)
Udit Iyengar (#7 age 11)
Vignesh Panchanatham (#11 age 11)
Colin Chow (#14 age 11)

IM Steven Zierk

Siddharth Banik (#17 age 11)
Kesav Viswanadha (#8 age 12)
Allan Beilin (#12 age 12)
Daniel Liu (#10 age 13)
Kyle Shin (#15 age 13)
Neel Apte (#16 age 13)
Paul Richter (#17 age 13)
Taylor McCreary (#17 GirlsU16)
NM Evan Sandberg (#15 age 18)

BRONZE MEDAL (top 30)
Zarek Azam (#21 age 7&under)
Jason Zhang (#23 age 7&under)
Arhant Katare (#28 age 9)
Kevin Moy (#22 age 11
Richard Yi (#24 age 11)
Art Zhao (#28 age 11)
James Kwok (#29 age 14)
NM Hayk Manvelyan (#20 age 17)
NM Rohan Agarwal (#19 age 18)