Wednesday, July 8

CalChess FIDE Rated Juniors - July 2009

The number of FIDE rated juniors in the Bay Area shrunk dramatically after the graduation of a strong class of High School seniors. Consequently, 13 year old FM Danya Naroditsky (photo at left) climbs to the top spot with FM-elect Steven Zierk (photo at right) close behind. Special kudos to Steven for cracking 2300 FIDE and thereby earning the FIDE master title! Ironically, the two state K-12 co-champions Evan Sandberg and Yian Liou appear at the bottom of the FIDE rankings--a sure sign that they still have plenty of room for improvement as they both seek the master title.
  1. FM Danya Naroditsky 2356
  2. FM-elect Steven Zierk 2306
  3. NM Gregory Young 2264
  4. NM Rohan Agarwal 2197
  5. NM Nicholas Nip 2147
  6. Evan Sandberg 2146
  7. Yian Liou 2134
Five FIDE rated local juniors graduated from High School in June. Congratulations to Adarsh Konda (2115), Alan Naroditsky (2113), Michael Zhong (2113) and Louiza Livschitz (1963) for each leaving their mark on Northern California chess. Of course, the big name in the graduating class of 2009 was IM Sam Shankland (2448, see photo at right), who recently earned a pair of GM norms and now stands at the verge of the most prestigious title in the world.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

why Daniel Naroditsky is not in Antalya Turkey in 2009?

Michael Aigner said...

After attending 5 straight World Youth tournaments, you can understand that the family is tired of traveling. The events are stressful and, after winning two years ago, the pressure is even greater. Also, Danya has taken a different approach lately, looking for tournaments that offer IM norms. To wit, I think he's playing in Holland next week.