Saturday, December 12

Bay Area Kids at Nationals in Dallas

Over 20 CalChess juniors and their parents made the trek to Dallas for the National Scholastic K-12 Championships this weekend. The kids compete among 1200 young chess players in one of 13 sections, one for each grade level from Kindergarten to 12th grade. By Sunday afternoon, all will have finished seven tough rounds at the time control of G/90. Can any of our kids bring home a trophy? The local delegation actually did quite well last year in Orlando: Kyle Shin (photo below, eating Texas sized ribs) won 5th grade, Arun Khemani won Kindergarten and five others earned either a place trophy or honorable mention.

Since most of the Bay Area kids are ranked near the top of their section, the two rounds on Friday were supposed to be just a warm-up. Not surprisingly, 11 have perfect 2-0 scores before going to bed. However, the three rounds on Saturday should be a wee bit more challenging. Go ChessPunks!

Click here for the official pairings and standings.

FINAL Local Standings
Highlights: Rayan Taghizadeh won all seven rounds to become National 2nd Grade Champion! Unfortunately, both Allan Beilin (5th) and Kyle Shin (6th) lost in the last round while sharing the lead. Bay Area kids brought home a grand total of 10 trophies.
  • 1st grade: Solomon Ge 5.0 -- 9th place
  • 1st grade: Josiah Stearman 4.5
  • 2nd grade: Rayan Taghizadeh 7.0 -- National Champion!!
  • 3rd grade: Anirudh Seela 5.0 -- 15th place
  • 4th grade: Cameron Wheeler 6.0 -- 3rd place!
  • 4th grade: Vignesh Panchanatham 5.5 -- 6th place
  • 4th grade: Jeffrey Tao 5.5 -- 11th place
  • 4th grade: Alvin Kong 5.0
  • 4th grade: Siddharth Banik 5.0
  • 4th grade: Udit Iyengar 4.5
  • 5th grade: Kesav Viswanadha 6.0 -- 2nd place!
  • 5th grade: Allan Beilin 5.5 -- 7th place
  • 5th grade: Armaan Kalyanpur 4.5
  • 6th grade: Kyle Shin 5.5 -- 4th place!
  • 6th grade: Daniel Liu 5.0 -- 13th place
My readers may wish to hop over to an exciting new blog written by Cameron Wheeler and his father Rob. Thanks also for the frequent Twitter updates! Finally, some of the top boards from each round appear to be available at the MonRoi website (free registration).

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