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| IM Vignesh Panchanatham celebrates with GM Sam Shankland. (credit: US Chess) |
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| SM Rayan Taghizadeh (credit: US Chess) |
(This paragraph was posted at 1:00pm PDT.) The final round pairings of SuperNationals VI in Nashville saw a pair of Bay Area stars sitting at board 1 of their respective sections. Both IM Kesav Viswanadha and SM Rayan Taghizadeh could clinch first place simply by winning with the white pieces. Possibly a draw would be enough. Another 8 local juniors had 5.0 points heading into the last round and hoped for a Top 10 trophy: IM Vignesh Panchanatham and NM Michael Wang in K-12; Abhinav Koka in K-8; William Sartorio in K-6; Sriram Krishnakumar, Nitish Nath and Adrian Kondakov in K-3; and Lucas Jiang in K-1. Will they make it?
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| IM Kesav Viswanadha (credit: US Chess) |
A grand total of 22 NorCal kids won a place trophy or honorable mention (tied for last trophy) in the championship sections. Special kudos to those who also finished in the Top 10: William Sartorio (9th in K-6), NM Christopher Yoo (5th in K-5), Sriram Krishnakumar (5th in K-3) and Adrian Kondakov (7th in K-3). Three more came very close: Maurya Palusa (11th in K-5), Nitish Nath (12th in K-3) and Kavya Meiyappan (11th in K-1). Way to go!!
Four Bay Area school teams placed in the Top 3 of their section. The K-12 proved most competitive, with Monta Vista High School of Cupertino capturing 1st place, narrowly ahead of teams from Washington and Virginia. This was the fourth National team title in seven years for IM Viswanadha, IM Cameron Wheeler, nm Udit Iyengar and nm Pranav Srihari after 2011 (Regnart ES), 2012 (Kennedy MS) and 2015 (Monta Vista HS). Wow!! Two other Silicon Valley schools, Mission San Jose HS and The Harker School, finished in 6th and 9th place, respectively. Respect!
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| Monta Vista High School (credit: Vasu Sarangapani) |
While the Monta Vista dynasty is quite impressive, equally so is the year-to-year success at Mission San Jose Elementary. Regardless of which students attend his program, Coach Joe Lonsdale manages to craft a strong team that is always competitive in multiple age groups at National Elementary! This year, MSJE finished 3rd in K-6, 2nd in K-1 and co-champions in K-5! By my count, this is the seventh national title that MSJE won or shared since 2009, and comes on the heels of victory in K-6 last year (with mostly different kids). I honestly don't know how Coach Joe pulls this off every year.
- Standings and Winners
- Replay Games from Top Boards
- Photos at US Chess Twitter
Final Standings (minimum 4.0)
K-12 Championship
- IM Kesav Viswanadha (MVHS) 6.0 (NATIONAL CHAMPION)
- IM Vignesh Panchanatham (Harker) 6.0 (NATIONAL CHAMPION)
- NM Michael Wang (Harker) 5.5 (14th place)
- IM Cameron Wheeler (MVHS) 5.0 (18th place)
- Christopher Pan (Mission) 5.0 (honorable mention)
- nm Udit Iyengar (MVHS) 4.0
- Ganesh Murugappan (Mission) 4.0
- Anirudh Seela (Mission) 4.0
- Amit Sant (Mission) 4.0
- Monta Vista High School 18.5 (NATIONAL CHAMPION)
- Mission San Jose High School 17.0 (6th place)
- The Harker School 16.5 (9th place)
K-9 Championship
- SM Rayan Taghizadeh 6.0 (NATIONAL CHAMPION)
K-8 Championship
- Abhinav Koka 5.5 (14th place)
- Jaisuraj Kaleeswaran 4.0
- Shaashwath Sivakumar 4.0
- Hopkins Junior High School 12.0 (15th place)
K-6 Championship
- William Sartorio 5.5 (9th place)
- Milind Maiti 5.0 (18th place)
- Annapoorni Meiyappan (MSJE) 4.5
- Atul Thirumalai (MSJE) 4.5
- Leo Jiang (MSJE) 4.0
- Shreyas Nayak (MSJE) 4.0
- Edwin Thomas (MSJE) 4.0
- Mission San Jose Elementary 17.0 (3rd place)
K-5 Championship
- NM Christopher Yoo 6.0 (5th place)
- Maurya Palusa 5.5 (11th place)
- Vyom Vidyarthi 5.0 (17th place)
- Kevin Pan (MSJE) 5.0 (24th place)
- Allyson Wong (MSJE) 5.0 (honorable mention)
- Stephen He (MSJE) 5.0
- Abhinav Penagalapati 4.5
- Nicholas Jiang (MSJE) 4.5
- Aghilan Nachiappan (MSJE) 4.0
- Mission San Jose Elementary 19.5 (co-NATIONAL CHAMPION)
K-3 Championship
- Sriram Krishnakumar 6.0 (5th place)
- Adrian Kondakov 6.0 (7th place)
- Nitish Nath 5.5 (12th place)
- Shaaketh Sivakumar 5.5 (14th place)
- Shawnak Shivakumar 5.5 (16th place)
- Nikhil Parvathaneni 4.0
K-1 Championship
- Kavya Meiyappan (MSJE) 5.5 (11th place)
- Lucas Jiang (MSJE) 5.0 (17th place)
- Omya Vidyarthi 5.0 (honorable mention)
- Jason Li-Shen Liu (MSJE) 4.5
- Elizur Fisher-Kirshner 4.0
- Mission San Jose Elementary 18.5 (2nd place)
