Hip Hop Chess Video

The Hip Hop Chess Federation hosted the second annual Mind over Matter festival last Saturday in San Francisco. The following YouTube video vividly shares the event's atmosphere. Do you recognize some of the chess celebrities? I saw rapper RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, the enigmatic yet legendary IM Emory Tate, top board of the Stanford chess team FM Elliott Liu and prolific author FM Eric Schiller.



As a side note, IM Tate is giving a simul tonight at BayAreaChess.com headquarters in San Jose (4423 Fortran Court). The action begins at 6:45, but make sure to reserve your spot by sending email to contact(at)bayareachess.com (limit 20 players).

USCF Top 100 Juniors (U21) for February

(Here's a blast from the past. Daniel Schwarz and Drake Wang set up to play at the 2001 CalChess Scholastics in Santa Clara. Both were in 6th grade at the time; Daniel was rated 1675 and Drake was 1844. However, top seeded Alexander Setzepfandt took clear 1st place with 5.5 out of 6, drawing with Schwarz in the final round.)

It has long been established that Northern California is a mecca for scholastic chess that can compete with the rest of the nation. The February Top 100 lists confirm this fact. Impressively, 13 local juniors and college students are ranked on the most prestigious ranking list for juniors: Under Age 21.

At the top, IM Sam Shankland (#7) does not require much of an introduction after winning both the CalChess State Championship and the World U18 Championship. Besides Shankland, the most impressive player over the past four months was NM Steven Zierk (#30), who gained 74 USCF points since Labor Day, thereby cracking 2300. See a photo of Steven from 2nd grade at right. The two youngest masters in the Bay Area are also well known to readers of this blog: 13 year old FM Danya Naroditsky (#17) and 10 year old NM Nicholas Nip (#70).

These rankings are also the last hoorah for the previous generation of junior masters, those who have now gone off to college. For many years, NM Daniel Schwarz (#25), NM Nicolas Yap (#27), NM Matthew Ho (#40) and NM Drake Wang (#49) dominated the local scene. Now Daniel and Matthew attend Stanford University together FM Elliott Liu (#15) from San Diego and NM Vaishnav Aradhyula (#60) from Tucson. Go Stanford!!

• #7 IM Sam Shankland (2441)
• #15 FM Elliott Liu (2398) - attending Stanford University from Southern California
• #17 FM Danya Naroditsky (2358)
• #25 NM Daniel Schwarz (2316)
• #27 NM Nicolas Yap (2315)
• #30 NM Steven Zierk (2308)
• #37 NM Julian Landaw (2292) - attending UC Berkeley from Southern California
• #40 NM Matthew Ho (2281)
• #49 NM Drake Wang (2262)
• #51 NM Gregory Young (2249)
• #60 NM Vaishnav Aradhyula (2225) - attending Stanford University from Arizona
• #69 NM Rohan Agarwal (2212)
• #70 NM Nicholas Nip (2211)

Stanford Ties for Third at Pan Ams

(Stanford chess team from left to right: NM Daniel Schwarz, FM Elliott Liu, Christopher De Sa, NM Vaishnav Aradhyula. Photo taken by WIM Alexey Root of UTD.)

Congratulations to the Stanford University chess team for finishing tied for third place at the Pan American Intercollegiate Championship in Dallas on December 27-30. The team of FM Elliott Liu (2406), NM Daniel Schwarz (2321), NM Vaishnav Aradhyula (2207) and Christopher De Sa (2155) faced stiff competition against 2500+ average teams from the two scholarship powers of University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC). UTD won on tiebreaks over UMBC, both with 5.0/6; Stanford finished at 4.5. Other master strength teams in attendance included New York University, Harvard, University of Texas at Brownsville (UTB) and University of Toronto.

As a reward for placing in the top four, Stanford was invited to participate in the Final Four of college chess on April 4-5, once again in Dallas. The Cardinal will face UTD, UMBC and UTB in a round-robin for the most prestigious prize in college chess. This will be a huge challenge as UTD fields a GM and a whopping 7 IMs while UMBC has three GMs plus a WGM. Goooo Stanford!

Please read the story on Chess Life Online for more details about the Pan Am.

CalChess FIDE Top 20

The following list includes the top 20 players (plus ties) presently living in Northern California who played in at least one FIDE rated event on the West Coast during the past year. Source: October 2008 FIDE rating list.

Newcomers to these rankings include IM Andrei Florean (photo upper left), who moved to California from the East and recently flirted with a GM norm at the strong Miami Open, Stanford University freshman FM Elliott Liu, who has two IM norms, University of California at Berkeley freshman NM Julian Landaw and finally local rising star NM Steven Zierk (photo upper right), who gained a whopping 108 FIDE points in three months.

1. IM Josh Friedel 2498 (GM-elect)
2. IM Vinay Bhat 2498 (GM-elect)
3. FM Sam Shankland 2436
4. GM Walter Browne 2435
5. IM David Pruess 2422
6. IM Andrei Florean 2420
7. IM John Donaldson 2411
8. IM Ricardo DeGuzman 2409
9. IM Vladimir Mezentsev 2405
10. FM Vladimir Strugatsky 2397
11. IM Dmitry Zilberstein 2393
12. FM Daniel Naroditsky 2382
13. IM John Grefe 2348
14. FM Elliott Liu 2356
15. FM Shiv Shivaji 2308
16. WIM Batchimeg Tuvshintugs 2293
17. NM Julian Landaw 2286
18. NM Gregory Young 2264
19. NM Nicolas Yap 2255
20. NM Steven Zierk 2240
21. NM Andy Lee 2240