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)

NorCal House 3-Peats as National Champs

In white sweatshirts from L to R: GM Sevillano, IM DeGuzman,
captain Ted Castro, and FM Cusi. Photo credit: Castro.

NorCal House of Chess dominated the U.S. Amateur Team, capturing the national playoff for an unprecedented third straight year.  They qualified for the playoff by winning all six matches at the Amateur Team West in Irvine on President's Day weekend.  Today, they won two more matches, first eliminating the North champion Pinoy of Chicago by 3.0-1.0 and then crushing the East champion Virginia Assassins by 3.5-0.5.

Organized by Metropolitan Chess L.A.

Before last year, no team had ever repeated in the playoff.  NorCal House now can claim a hat trick!

Major props to the following All Star cast of coaches and students.  GM Enrico Sevillano (2554), IM Ricardo DeGuzman (2453) and FM Ron Cusi (2302) capably manned the top three boards for two straight years.  Juniors Ronit Pattanayak (1480) and Evan Vallens (1377) shared duties on the bottom board, with Ronit winning two pivotal contests today against much higher rated opponents.  Club founder and organizer Ted Castro served as team captain.

See for playoff games at Chess Life Online and in the May edition of Chess Life magazine.