CalChess Crowns New Scholastic Champs

Playing room for divisions playing on 2-day schedule. Credit: ChessDryad

The 40th CalChess Scholastic Championship drew over 900 participants, their families and coaches to the Santa Clara Convention Center.  Despite the mass of humanity at the start of each round and a country music concert across the street, most of the kids enjoyed playing chess.  Many thanks to Bay Area Chess for organizing this complex event, especially Judit Sztaray plus her most experienced directors Tom Langland and John McCumiskey.

• Click for full results.
• Click for USCF rating report.
• Click for photos by Richard Shorman.
• Click for photos by Dr. Alan Kirshner.

TD Tom and Coach Joe with MSJE K-5 team.

Kudos to top seeded FM Cameron Wheeler for winning the challenging High School division for an unprecedented third straight year!  Incredibly, Cam is just a freshman and could conceivably win another three times.  His school, Monta Vista High School of Cupertino, easily claimed first place, nearly doubling the next best score.

The Elementary School divisions were dominated by well-established chess programs based in Fremont.  Mission San Jose Elementary, guided by veteran coach Joe Lonsdale, swept the K-6, K-5 and K-3 championships for the fourth straight year!  However, crosstown rival Weibel Elementary proved competitive in all three divisions, especially in K-6 where a half point separated first and second.  NorCal House of Chess won the club competition in both K-6 and K-5, but Liu Chess Club pulled ahead in K-3.  I tip my hat to Coach Ted Castro and Coach Wei Liu.

Congratulations to all of the State Champions!


Individual Champions

• K-12: FM Cameron Wheeler
• Denker Invitee: FM Vignesh Panchanatham
• K-8: CM Pranav Senthilkumar
• Barber Invitee: FM Rayan Taghizadeh
• Girl's Invitee: Simona Nayberg
• K-6: Eeswar Sree Kurli and Daniel Cheng
• K-5: Rishith Susarla
• K-3: Adrian Kondakov, Aghilan Nachiappan, Joon Kim and Prarthan Ghosh
• K: Nitish Nath and Vaibhav Krishnan

Team and Club Champions

• K-12 Team: Monta Vista HS (Cupertino)
• K-8 Team: Miller MS (Cupertino)
• K-8 Club: NorCal House of Chess (Fremont)
• K-6 Team: Mission San Jose Elementary (Fremont)
• K-6 Club: NorCal House of Chess (Fremont)
• K-5 Team: Mission San Jose Elementary (Fremont)
• K-5 Club: NorCal House of Chess (Fremont)
• K-3 Team: Mission San Jose Elementary (Fremont)
• K-3 Club: Liu Chess Club (Palo Alto)

Helicopter Parents at Scholastic Tournies

In the latest issue of CalChess Journal, President Tom Langland addresses the cultural phenomenon of helicopter parents at chess tournaments.  Indeed, any experienced coach or director can share their unique laundry list of nightmares involving overly affectionate parents.  Oxford Dictionaries define a helicopter parent as one "who takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child."  These parents frustrate coaches, drive directors nuts, and do no favor to the kids they adore!

For more news and information about chess in Northern California, please visit the CalChess website.  Membership is $5/year.  Join here. 

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"I see it all time, especially in chess tournaments. Parents who have extreme anxiety about separating from their child before their game starts are the chess equivalent of what is known as helicopter parents. Before a round starts, their child has to have all their pencils sharpened for them, tissues ready, their notation sheet filled out, drink bottle filled, snacks close at hand and that last minute hug (or two or three) before the round starts. Unfortunately, this causes trouble for the tournament directors who want to start the round on time. The TDs are stuck between upsetting parents who want to continue to cosset their child, and those parents, players and coaches who expect the tournament rounds to begin on time.

"I really do appreciate the problem a parent has with separating from their child and wanting to be comparable to a helicopter watching over them. Many times, I have been criticized that I don't know what it is like! Anyone who knows me understands I really do. In fact, that's how I ended up being most prolific National Tournament Director and International Arbiter in the US. When my sons started playing in like the second grade I remember being exactly like a helicopter. I would watch every move from afar, cringing every time they would hang their queen or miss a checkmate in one move. Finally at the State Grade Level Championship, I was driving my wife crazy and she suggested I volunteer to help direct to keep my mind busy. That's what got me here, and yes, I know exactly just how it feels to be a helicopter parent! It's tough!

"I've even seen helicopter parents vie against each other, like it’s a competition for who is the better parent. Two moms of opposing players aspire to be the last to leave their child. Which will get the final hug and a kiss in? All the while you can see the child hoping their parent would stop the fuss, go away and let them begin their game. Then we have the parents who have to peek in whenever the opportunity arises, holding the door open indefinitely to get that last glance in, hoping to get a glimpse of their child's position. I wish parents could see how distracting this is to all the participants. Every child has to look up to see if it is their parent peering at them, instead focusing on their game. I've even had a parent somehow observe their child forgetting to press their clock and insisted that I go over and remind the player to press their clock!
 
"Parents, the tournament staff do understand your desire to fuss over your child and to make them happy at the tournament. But please, remember the staff also wants to make the tournament a complete success and that includes starting the rounds on time and keeping distractions out of the room. Please be mindful of their requests and assist their efforts. Thank you!"

Thank YOU Tom! I could not have said it any better.

38th CalChess Scholastics Winners

Main playing hall at the Santa Clara Convention Center.  Photos by Azleena Azhar.

Around 1000 Bay Area youngsters descended on the Santa Clara Convention Center for the 38th annual CalChess State Scholastic Championships.  Participants ranged from novices attending their first serious chess tournament to a co-champion of the World Youth U12.  Many wide-eyed kids were accompanied by equally bewildered parents.  This turnout proves that scholastic chess still thrives in California!

K-12 Champ FM Cameron Wheeler

Twenty juniors rated 2000+ entered the FIDE-rated High School Championship, which this year seemed more like a local Open section (except without IM DeGuzman).  Indeed, one-third of the players, including the three masters at the top, had not yet begun high school.  Paradoxically, only three high school students sat at the first half-dozen boards in the last round.  And surprising few, the 2291-rated 7th grader FM Cameron Wheeler from Cupertino swept the field.  No doubt he faced a stiffer challenge at the World Youth U12 in Slovenia last year.  The next two in the final standings were his friends Kesav Viswanadha and Vignesh Panchanatham, both also in Middle School, and National Masters too.

Only a pair of High School students went undefeated (each yielded two draws) in the 5-round tournament: sophomore Taylor McCreary of San Luis Obispo and freshman Hunter Klotz-burwell of Palo Alto.  Taylor, underrated at 1872, earned respect and rating by beating 1960 and 2050 plus drawing with two even higher experts. However, she technically lives in Southern California, and consequently Hunter, rated 2083, qualified for the prestigious Denker Tournament of High School Champions in Wisconsin this summer.  Fair travels and good luck!

Denker rep Hunter Klotz-burwell

Bravo to all of the winners!  The following State Champions were crowned.  Click here for full Individual Results and Team Results, including the 11 Junior Varsity, Booster and Rookie sections.  Trivia: A whopping 109 children turned out to play in the 1-3 Rookie (unrated) division, the largest of the weekend.  Can you say Scholar's Mate?

K-12 Championship

• Champion: FM Cameron Wheeler with 5-0
• Runners-up: NM Kesav Viswanadha, NM Vignesh Panchanatham, Taylor McCreary, Siddharth Banik, Allan Beilin and Hunter Klotz-burwell all with 4-1
• Denker Qualifier: Hunter Klotz-burwell
• Top Team: Kennedy Middle (Cameron, Kesav, etc)

6-8 Championship

• Champion: Steven Li with 5.5-0.5
• Runner-up: Anirudh Seela with 5-1
• Top Team: Hopkins Junior High (all MSJE graduates)

4-6 Championship

• Champions: Bryce Wong, Seaver Dahlgren and Daniel Hwan all with 5-1
• Top Team: Mission San Jose Elementary

4-5 Championship

• Champion: Dante Peterson with 5.5-0.5
• Runners-up: Pranav Senthilkumar, David Pan, Daniel Mendelevitch and Amir Dhami all with 5-1
• Top Team: Mission San Jose Elementary

1-3 Championship

• Champion: Callaghan McCarty-snead with 5.5-0.5
• Runner-up: Robert Reyes with 5-1
• Top Team: Mission San Jose Elementary

Kindergarten

• Champion: William Chui with 5-0
• Runners-up: Samit Pattanayak and Arnav Lingannagari with 4.5-0.5

MSJE K-6 Champions with Coach Joe Lonsdale

MSJE K-3 Champions

Seemingly every year, Mission San Jose Elementary earns praise from this blog.  What have they done this spring?  Three weeks ago, they won SuperNationals K-6 and finished Top 5 in two other sections.  Then last weekend, the Giants of chess crushed the local competition, taking on all those who dared and easily winning all three CalChess Elementary team championships, two Junior Varsity divisions, and one Booster.  Coach Joe Lonsdale, his experienced staff, and private coaches (e.g. Ted Castro, Chris Torres, Wei Liu and the veteran magician Richard Shorman) have molded quite a dynasty over the years!  Frankly, I am always amazed how they can teach a 6 or 7 year old how the pieces move in September, by April they are rated 600 and by the second year they have crossed 1000. Well done!!

The influence of MSJE extends far beyond 6th grade.  The CalChess Middle School champion team at Hopkins Junior High consists of alumni of this great chess program.  And by the time they reach High School, the former students return to teach the youngsters, sharing their wisdom from over the years.  However, even the dominance of MSJE has limits.  In the K-12 Open, the all-star lineup of Kennedy Middle, featuring two masters and two experts, predictably steamrolled the field.  Veni! Vidi! Vici!

A special thank you goes to Organizer Salman Azhar of BayAreaChess.com for putting in literally hundreds of hours to prepare for the CalChess Scholastics.  Nothing ever goes off perfectly, but by many accounts, the 2013 edition proceeded quite smoothly.  Of course, a lot of credit goes to Chief Tournament Director and NTD Tom Langland (also CalChess President), his computer guru NTD John McCumiskey, plus the entire staff of directors and volunteers.  All I can say personally, is that I wish I could have been there. :-)

CalChess Bear

• Tournament Website
• Individual Results 
• Team Results
• USCF Rating Report (not yet available)
• Photo Album by Richard Shorman (171 pics) -- also on ChessDryad
• Photo Album #1 by Azleena Azhar (212 pics)
• Photo Album #2 by Azleena Azhar (154 pics)

Photos of King Magnus in Bay Area!

Nicholas K and Daniel S with Carlsen.

Tom Langland poses with Numero Uno.

Not every day does a young Norwegian man makes waves in Silicon Valley.  Nov. 16, 2012 was indeed a magical day!  Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated chess player on the planet, stopped by for a small blindfold simultaneous exhibition, Q&A and many personal photos.  Check out Facebook for photos and videos by Richard Shorman.  Thanks to IM David Pruess, Tom Langland and Bay Area Chess for putting together this memorable afternoon.

GM Carlsen slouches in chair while playing four kids blindfolded!

Make sure to read Mr. Langland's new article at Chess Life Online and watch the video of Daniel Naroditsky playing blitz against King Magnus.

CalChess Scholastic Champions!

The 37th annual CalChess Scholastics took place last weekend at the traditional venue, the Santa Clara Convention Center.  A total of 844 youngsters played in one of 14 different sections, ranging from Kindergarten and K-3 Unrated up to the competitive 6-8 and 9-12 Championships.  Thanks to organizer Salman Azhar, CalChess President Tom Langland, Chief Tournament Director John McCumiskey and the rest of the staff for putting this event together.

Without further ado, here are the 2012 State Champions!  Congratulations to all!!

High School 9-12: Joshua Cao and Sudarshan Seshadri
Middle School 6-8: Neel Apte
Elementary 4-6: Siddharth Banik
Elementary 4-5: Ben Rood
Primary 1-3: John A. Chan 

Click here for crosstables.

I focused mostly on the High School section, headed by a quintet of experts and several former students.  While most of the top seeds struggled in 9-12, two surprise winners emerged: 8th grader Joshua and 1835 rated Sudarshan!  Joshua took home the 1st place trophy on tiebreaks, but Sudarshan earned the biggest prize: a ticket to the Denker Invitational this August in Vancouver, WA. 

Three of the top four seeds in Middle School attend Kennedy Middle in Cupertino, and predictably, two squared off in the final round.  My longtime student Neel finished strong to clinch his second straight 1st place trophy.  In fact, he became state champion for the fifth time in six years (K-3, 4-5, 4-6 and 6-8 twice).  Actually, nobody has ever won all of the major sections in the long history of this tournament.  Neel and another of my students, 9th grader James Kwok, only need to win 9-12 to achieve this record.

The Elementary section winners both finished with perfect 6-0 scores.  Siddharth went coast-to-coast as the favorite in 4-6, defeating his closest challenger in the final round.  Ben knocked off the top two seeds in 4-5, including one rated nearly 400 points higher.  After winning K-3 as a 1st grader last year, Ben won 4-5 as a 2nd grader!  Way to go!!

The team competition was rather anticlimactic this year.  National power Mission San Jose Elementary easily won all of the Primary and Elementary sections while Mission San Jose High earned a second straight 9-12 title.  See the embedded photos for a few of the victorious kids at MSJE.  Props to Coach Joe Lonsdale for directing such a successful program over so many years!  Unfortunately, one reason for the lack of team competition was a boycott by rival Weibel Elementary.  I find it really sad that certain adults choose to teach their young children the wrong way to resolve their conflicts.

Normally my report would include photos of winners in each section, sometimes from my own camera   Due to ongoing health issues, I could not attend.  Alas, I have only seen one album from Saturday by Richard Shorman, plus a handful of photos from Sunday's awards presentation.  If you can share additional photos, please send them to michael (at) fpawn (dot) com.  Thanks!

New CalChess Website: www.norcalchess.org

ANNOUNCEMENT from CalChess President Tom Langland (originally dated 11/01/09)

As many of you have observed the CalChess website (www.calchess.org) has suffered a major malware attack. From what I can gather, the website was possibly penetrated several weeks ago, and has since been hit critically. This is not the first time the site has been attacked and penetrated, but one of several. The current location appears to provide insufficient protection against outside attacks. I also continue to receive 40-50 spam messages a day.

My attempts to remedy the situation have met with extreme resistance, and the current environment is untenable. This was a position I thought was regrettably forthcoming.

To that end, I have been working on a long-term project to improve the site, and due to the above situation, I am releasing it ahead of my intended schedule.

So... I am announcing the new official Calchess website located at: http://www.norcalchess.org

The new site is still a work in progress, and I am looking forward to feedback. I do not have any plans to maintain the "old" site.

/Tom Langland/ (photo at right)

Postscript by fpawn: In fact, the www.calchess.org domain name already expired and the former website is now history. What a shame! The old webmaster put much effort into the site, but unfortunately the many tools were never utilized to their potential. I tried hard for several years to write articles in the hopes that other local chess players would contribute as well. Becoming frustrated, I turned my efforts to this blog and www.calchess.org died. There are many reasons why nobody wanted to post, ranging from pure laziness to the quirky personality of the webmaster. Fortunately, Tom Langland stepped up and volunteered many hours of his own time to develop www.norcalchess.org almost entirely from scratch. I sincerely hope it meets a better fate, and I pledge to contribute again. Nonetheless, I intend to continue posting the majority of my writings on this blog.

Many Thanks to the CalChess Scholastics Staff

(Candid photographs of the tournament bigwigs by Richard Shorman. From left to right: Salman Azhar, Tom Langland and John McCumiskey.)

It has been said before but I'll say it once again: the CalChess Scholastic Championships on May 17-18 would not have been possible without the tireless and underappreciated efforts of a small group of staff. I wish to single out three individuals in particular.

• Organizer Salman Azhar worked literally day and night in the weeks prior to the tournament to take entries, answer questions and make sure that everything was ready to go. While much of his work took place behind the scenes, I did receive comments from parents about this "superman" who responded to emails at 3am.
• CalChess President Tom Langland was one of the first people to show up in the morning and the last to leave in the evening for three straight days (Friday through Sunday). Despite working overtime, Tom always was cheerful, especially to the kids.
• National TD John McCumiskey diligently ensured that the tournament ran smoothly, both on schedule and in compliance with USCF and CalChess rules. John oversaw the directing staff and relied on his vast experience to extinguish a myriad of small fires.

These three individuals received plenty of help from the other staff members and dozens of official volunteers, but the ultimate responsibility fell back to them. Did everything proceed perfectly? No. Still, the event surpassed most expectations and most people went home content, even if some wish they had done better at the chess board. I hope the readers of this blog will join me in a round of cyber applause for a job well done!