Bay Area Teenage Mutant Chess Masters

Future GMs: Daniel Naroditsky (white) squares off against Sam Shankland in 2007.

Over the past decade, the Bay Area has become an incubator for the development of young chess talents.  Indeed, school age masters used to be a rare breed, with no more than one or two gracing local tournaments at the same time.  This changed at the 2006 CalChess Scholastics, which saw a quartet of masters compete in the K-12 section.  Moreover, two of the experts participating that year would go on to earn the highest title in chess: Grandmaster!

Today, the roster of teenage masters has mutated.  It no longer numbers in single figures, but rather in the 20s!  Only a few states around the country can boast that many adult masters.  Some of the most talented juniors earn the NM title already at age 10 or 11.

NorCal K-12 Masters (Age and January 2016 USCF rating)

1. FM Wheeler, Cameron (15) 2436 (photo at right)
   
2. IM Viswanadha, Kesav (16) 2416
3. FM Panchanatham, Vignesh (15) 2415
4. NM Zhu, Jack Qijie (17) 2313
5. FM Taghizadeh, Rayan (13) 2312
6. NM Hong, Andrew Z (11) 2306
7. NM Banik, Siddharth G (15) 2265
8. NM Jirasek, Ladia (15) 2257
9. NM Zhao, Art (16) 2242
10. WIM Eswaran, Ashritha (15) 2238
11. NM Beilin, Allan J (16) 2231
12. NM Virtanen, Teemu (16) 2230
13. NM Klotz-Burwell, Hunter (17) 2225
14. NM Bick, Gabriel J (16) 2223
15. NM Wang, Michael (14) 2217
16. NM Nagarajan, Pranav (16) 2217
17. NM Chow, Colin (16) 2209
18. NM Apte, Neel (17) 2205
19. NM Iyengar, Udit (15) 2205
20. NM Stearman, Josiah P (12) 2203 (photo at right)
21. nm Wang, Michael Lei (16) 2196*
22. FM Vasudeva, Tanuj (14) 2186*
23. nm Liu, Daniel (18) 2159*

 * previously broke 2200, but slipped back down

In addition, several local juniors have been awarded the Candidate Master title by the World Chess Federation in recognition of excellent performance at international youth tournaments.  These young stars are well on track to become masters themselves.

• CM Senthilkumar, Pranav (13) 1975
• CM Bayaraa, Chinguun (10) 1889 (photo at right)
• WCM Garai, Antara (11) 1821
• WCM Zhao, Chenyi (12) 1775
• CM Nachiappan, Aghilan (8) 1743
• WCM Eswaran, Aksithi (9) 1709

Make sure to check out the NorCal Top 20 Juniors at my chess teaching website.
Photo credit: Richard Shorman at ChessDryad.

Schutt Blitz Results and Photos

FM Yian Liou

IM Daniel Naroditsky

NM Daniel Schwarz

Now in its seventh year, the Ray Schutt Memorial Blitz Tournament continues to attract many of the strongest and fastest local players to the Mechanics' Institute.  The 5 double-round swiss (10 games) featured a generous $750 prize fund, augmented by free books for everyone, including multiple signed copies by Bay Area authors.  Even ten days later, the fond memories remain fresh.  Thanks to photographer Richard Shorman and webmaster Kerry Lawless for uploading more than 100 photos on ChessDryad.

6-time US Champion
GM Walter Browne

A blast from the past:
NM Mike Arne

Out of a record 63 participants, 17 were masters, including two Grandmasters and seven International Masters.  The defending champion IM Daniel Naroditsky was poised to three-peat, but he faced stiff challenges in the final two rounds from Italian IM Niccolo Ronchetti (1.5-0.5) and 3-time US Champion GM Nick deFirmian (1-1).  This allowed high school sophomore FM Yian Liou to snatch clear first place by sweeping IM Ricardo DeGuzman (2-0).

Three of my former students finished in the money: Yian, Danya and recent Stanford graduate Daniel Schwarz.  Way to go guys!  All that blitz practice pays dividends!

Final Standings

• 9.0 FM Yian Liou
• 8.5 GM Nick deFirmian and IM Daniel Naroditsky
• 8.0 IM Ray Kaufman, IM Odondoo Ganbold and NM Daniel Schwarz
• 7.5 IM Niccolo Ronchetti
• 7.0 IM Ricardo DeGuzman and FM Andy Lee
• 6.5 GM Walter Browne
• 5.5 NM Michael Aigner

On the day before the blitz, the Mechanics' hosted the 13th Powell Memorial (G/45).  For the first time in four years, Yours Truly ended up victorious!  I beat master Romulo Fuentes and improving expert Aleksandr Ivanov before drawing with National K-8 champion Siddharth Banik.  Most importantly, I finally got off my life master floor!

The Chess Room

Wanted! Local Chess Photos

(Here's a photo of the Cherryland Cafe, a chess hangout in Hayward the 1970s. Thanks to the dedicated volunteers ChessDryad for maintaining a detailed historical record. Also read the ICC finger notes of Frisco Del Rosario for more info.)

There's a lot of chess in the community, such as a big chess board at a town center, chess bumper stickers on a car, chess tables at Starbucks, and etc.... Please send us an original picture of "Chess in the community" by June 28 and we'll share it on our next show!

Please tell us your name and where the picture was taken. We prefer JPEG picture format. Send your pictures to chessdiva.show (at) gmail.com

Thank you,
Lauren and Barbara
http://www.geocities.com/chessdiva.show/

Welcome!

Welcome to the fpawn chess blog. I just created this feature, which I hope to use more frequently later this year as I travel to tournaments. For now, just visit my homepage and check out my finger notes on ICC for the latest news.

In case you're wondering, the above photo was taken recently, on February 10. Thanks to Mark Shelton of ChessDryad, one of my favorite Northern California chess websites.

May all your pawns promote!

Michael Aigner