Chess Players Graduate - Class of '13

Andrew and Benjamin

Kevin

Over the years, I have been blessed by the opportunity to coach some of the brightest kids in Northern California.  Simply spoken, smart children play chess, and chess offers a competitive arena to exercise their cerebral talents.  I always knew my students had the brains to excel.  Every June, it seems that the graduates move on to some of the best colleges in America.  Well done mates!

Many hearty congratulations to the High School Class of 2013!  Former chess students will matriculate all around the country in the Fall: Stanford (Kevin), UC Berkeley (Andrew and Ted), MIT (Jonathan), Yale (Benjamin) and NYU (Embert) in the Fall.  These young stars not only achieved state and national recognition in chess, but also in math and science.  Here is a special shout-out to Kevin and Andrew for being recognized as finalist and semifinalist (respectively) in the Intel Science Talent Search!


The nine main members of the 6-time CalChess K-12 Champion team at Saratoga High School have all moved on, with four choosing Stanford and four attending UC Berkeley (plus one guy at Duke).  David and Jeff have graduated from Berkeley while Marvin and Aaron earned their diplomas from Stanford.  Aaron will continue at MIT for graduate studies.  Congratulations guys! 

The following list shows the number of former chess students who enrolled at prestigious universities (including new freshmen).  Unfortunately, I lost track of a few students.

• 11 = UC Berkeley
• 6 = Stanford 
• 3 = MIT
• 2 = UCLA and UC San Diego 
• 1 = Yale, Northwestern, Duke, NYU, Rutgers
• 1 = Pomona, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz
  

Class of 2009

Congrats High School Graduates 2009!!!
(From left to right: Mike Zhong, Jeff Young and Aaron Garg.)
(Update June 12: New photos of Jeff and Aaron.)

As the 2009 graduating class moves on, it is time to briefly reflect on one of the largest classes of chess players ever in Northern California. The graduating seniors include the highest rated local junior ever and five additional players who have been rated over 2000.

They also achieved many noteworthy successes over the years. Sam Shankland flew all the way to Vietnam and came home with a share of first place at the 2008 World Youth U18, thereby earning the esteemed title of International Master. Michael Zhong battled four straight teenage masters en route to a tie for first place at the 2007 National High School Championship. Jeff Young stared down IM Salvijus Bercys to help Saratoga High School earn third place at the 2006 National High School Championship. Veni, vidi, vici!

Here is a list of all of the Bay Area's chess players who are graduating from high school this month. For those whom I know, I included the university that they will attend. Please contact me if I left someone out.

1. IM Sam Shankland 2474 - Brandeis University (Boston)
   
2. Adarsh Konda 2108 - ?
   
3. Mike Zhong 2092 - Columbia University (New York City)
   
4. Alan Naroditsky 2058 - UCLA
5. Jeff Young (Saratoga H.S.) 1990 - UC Berkeley
6. Louiza Livschitz 1981 - ?
   
7. Sreekar Jasthi 1905 - Emory University (Atlanta)
   
8. Greg Bodwin 1882 - ?
   
9. Aaron Garg (Saratoga H.S.) - Stanford University
10. Ken Law - ?
    
11. Alex Lun (Saratoga H.S.) - UC San Diego
12. Avinash Kumar (Saratoga H.S.) - Marquette University (Milwaukee)
    

I had ties to almost everyone on this list. Four were private students: Jeff, Alan, Aaron and Ken. Then Alex, Avinash and Greg participated in some group classes in Saratoga. And although I never formally taught Sam and Mike, I developed friendships with both at tournaments and on ICC. Here's my brief tribute to some of the graduates.

• Jeff, I knew you since you were in 7th grade. You have grown from 1200 to 2000, and from a scrawny kid into a confident and outgoing young man. For many years, you and David Chock were the heart and soul of the Saratoga team, climaxing with a magical result in Milwaukee. Congratulations on your engineering scholarship!
• Alan, you amazed me by cheerfully accepting your role in your family's chess hierarchy, and yet you managed to step out of the shadows to become a star in your own right. You defied the trend of cutting back in chess during the later years of high school, despite your talent in piano and a heavy courseload at a prestigious school.
  
• Aaron, I worked with you for two years but knew you much longer. You always were the genius, but in many ways a gentle giant. I can't believe you got accepted at MIT, Harvard, Yale and literally everywhere else. Go Stanford! Beat Cal!
  
• Alex and Avinash, I didn't know you two as well as your teammates. You contributed to the positive chemistry that made the Saratoga team so enjoyable for everyone. From time to time, your games made us laugh, both brilliancy and blunder.
  

Photos and Results from Nashville

(Here is a photo of the Saratoga High School team. Top row from left: parent Steve Young, Charles Sun, Aaron Garg and Alex Lun. Middle: Brian Wai. Bottom row from left: Sankash Shankar, Evan Ye and Coach Fpawn. Not pictured: Avinash Kumar.)

Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in posting a report about SuperNationals IV. I am actually still recovering from the travel; my battle scars include one sprained toe, two bruises above my right eye and a mildly sprained left elbow. Despite these wounds, the trip to Nashville and back went quite well, at least away from the chess board.

Unfortunately, the results at the chess board were quite mixed. The Saratoga High School team finished in 11th place, a respectable finish in a very difficult section of 15 masters and over 50 experts. Kudos to Jeff Young for earning honorable mention with 5.0/7 and to Evan Ye for a solid 3.5/7 against five opponents rated over 1850. The U1600 team, severely handicapped by having only three players, ended up in 28th place. Despite the ups and downs, all eight players from Saratoga seemed to enjoy the team adventure.

As most readers probably already know, the Mission San Jose Elementary team went to Nashville and conquered the K-6 Championship! They blew open a tight race in the final round with a dominating 4-0 score. Special congrats to Hemang Jangle for crushing the top seed (rated 2174) and earning the 17th place individual trophy. See the photo at right of Hemang with his younger sister and former World Champion Garry Kasparov. The rest of the team joined Hemang to finish tied at 5.0/7: Jerome Sun got 20th, James Kwok 24th and Armaan Kalyanpur 33rd place trophies. MSJE also earned two more top 10 team trophies in K-5 and K-3, both for 9th place. The lion's share of credit for organizing such a successful elementary school chess club goes to MSJE coach Joe Lonsdale.

Four local players earned top 10 honors individually, led by National K-3 Champion Cameron Wheeler! Cameron won all 7 games, defeating friend Vignesh Panchanatham in the final round, and now is rated nearly 1800. The photo at left of Vignesh and Cameron was posted on Chess Life Online. Vignesh still earned the 4th place trophy as a consolation for a strong performance. Joseph Wan and Rayan Taghizadeh both got 6.0/7 in the K-1 section, earning 4th and 5th place trophies.

Click here for the final standings and the USCF rating report.

If any local parents have additional photographs that I may post, please forward them to me at the address located in the right sidebar.

Fpawn Rating List - April 2009

I updated the Fpawn Rating List for the April USCF supplement. Since my last blog post in December, the names at the top of the list remain largely unchanged.

Top 5 Students Overall

1. NM Steven 2311
2. NM Gregory 2249
3. Yian 2082
4. EvanS 2044
5. Alan 2035
6. Jeff 2013
7. MichaelL 2001
   

(Honorary: FM Danya 2341, NM DanielS 2317 and David 2095)

However, the ratings continue to inch upwards with every month. In fact, my students gained an average of +39 points since the December supplement just four months ago, with 19 gaining points and only 6 posting small losses. Kudos to the following big winners.

Largest Rating Gain (Past 4 Months)

1. DanielC +323
2. Suraj +170
3. Roland +125
4. Neel +94
5. Andrew +76
6. Aamir +74
7. Brian +71

Special kudos to Saratoga High School chess team senior Jeff Young (see photo by Richard Shorman) for cracking 2000 at this year's People's Tournament, an achievement that in my opinion was long overdue. He was rated 1173 when I began teaching him in November 2003. Jeff's most memorable win came at the 2006 National High School championship when he crushed 2437 rated IM-elect Salvijus Bercys.

I'm baaaaaaaack

Many of my readers have wondered what happened to this blog. Five weeks have passed since my last post. Did I give up blogging? Did I quit chess? Is something else seriously wrong?

Fortunately, I can assure everyone that rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated. Yes, I was sick for a while with nagging cold/flu symptoms. I also felt sad and burned out and wanted a little time simply to "chill" and recharge my mental batteries.

As the recent photo by Richard Shorman of ChessDryad at left proves, my enthusiasm for chess has not waned. I maintain a busy weekly teaching schedule with only occasional interruptions. Despite heavy rain on President's Day weekend, I joined 11 students and about 90 other chess enthusiasts at the People's Tournament in Berkeley. IM David Pruess beat me and won the Open section ahead of five other masters. Kudos to National 5th Grade Champion Kyle Shin for winning the U2200 section and to Saratoga High School senior Jeff Young for finally earning the rank of Expert! During February and March, I also participate in the annual Sacramento Chess Club Team Championship; unfortunately, neither my team (Elk Grove) nor I have played terribly well so far.

In other CalChess news, Samyukta Bhat (see photo at right) scored an undefeated 4.0/5 to take clear first for K-12 at the CalChess Girl's Championship, thereby earning our state's qualifying spot in this year's Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls in Lubbock, Texas on July 26-31. Rebekah Liu plans to attend the same invitational after winning the high school section of the Susan Polgar National Open in Glendale, AZ. Goooo girls!

I will try to catch up with some stories over the next week. Please check back soon!

More Photos from SVC5

Photos of some of the top players at Silicon Valley Challenge #5, from left to right:

• NM Richard Koepcke tied for 2nd place, but lost to NM Steven Zierk.
  
• Koepcke won an exciting last round game against NM Albert Rich.
  
• Student Jeff Young also tied for 2nd, drawing with me and inching closer to 2000.
  

Most of the Redwood Middle School team will move up to Saratoga High School in a month:

• Math wizard Brian improved his chess rating by 300 points in a year.
• Kevin flexed his muscles to crush a 1950 in round 1.
• Bottom board Sankash is determined to join his teammates above 1600.
  

Upsets Reign at High School (9-12) States

(The four co-champions of the High School division, from left to right, Boglarka Erdos, FM Daniel Naroditsky, Steven Zierk and Jeff Young.)

The premier section of the annual CalChess Scholastics was the 9-12 Varsity, better known as the High School Championship. Most of Northern California's juniors rated above 2000, regardless of their age, tested themselves in the second strongest scholastic swiss in the nation, behind only the National High School Championship. In recent years, the High School division included as many as four masters, but this time three of the four top players were unable to participate due to a variety of different reasons. The top rated local junior, NM Sam Shankland, spent the weekend playing on a bigger stage in Oklahoma: the US Championship. Despite these absences, defending champion FM Daniel Naroditsky headlined a competitive field of one master and seven experts.

The story of the tournament was the parade of upsets that began as early as round 1. Here is a list of wins on Saturday by lower rated players against opponents rated 1800+.

• Avinash Kumar (1576) defeated FM Daniel Naroditsky (2322) in round 1
• Kevin Bao (1230) defeated Arnav Shah (1837) in round 1
• Marvin Shu (1804) defeated Michael Zhong (2072) in round 2
  
• Greg Bodwin (1752) defeated Jeff Young (1980) in round 2
• Rebekah Liu (1699) defeated Charles Sun (1888) in round 2
• Minjian Wang (1611) defeated Daniel Quan (1893) in round 2
• Brandon Lee (1464) defeated Daniel Quan (1893) in round 3

There were, of course, a number of upset draws as well. Normalcy returned for Sunday's three rounds, but by then the lower rated players had left their mark on the championship.

Six players escaped the upset parade with a perfect 3-0 score on Saturday night: Steven Zierk, Boglarka Erdos, Adarsh Konda, Rohan Agarwal, Evan Sandberg and Sreekar Jasthi. Evan and Sreekar were voted off the island in the morning round on Sunday while Rohan and Adarsh suffered their expected fate later in the day against the upset yet determined World U12 Champion. That left two players tied at 4.5 out of 5 to compete for the top honors in the final round: Boglarka against Steven. Their hard fought draw opened the door to Daniel Naroditsky and Jeff Young, who both had lost badly in the first two rounds, to join them in a 4-way tie for 1st place. I am especially proud to point out that, excluding one foreign player, the three High School co-champions are all my students!

• Boglarka Erdos (2071 FIDE) came to California on a vacation paid for as a prize for winning a girl's championship in her native Hungary. She took the 1st place trophy by yielding only two draws to 2100+ rated opponents.
• Steven Zierk (2145) won the Junior High last year and moved up to the big boys. This was his third state title, having also won K-3 back in 2001. Steven will represent CalChess at the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in Dallas this August.
• FM Daniel Naroditsky (2307) successfully defended the title that he won last year, yet his performance was a bit shaky with the major upset in round 1. This was his fourth state title, having also won K-3 in 2004 and K-6 in 2005.
• Jeff Young (1978) became just the second player rated under 2000 to win or tie for 1st place in the High School division since 1990. He will ascend to the top board for the powerful team at Saratoga High School next year.

Final Standings of 9-12 Varsity

1. 5.0 Boglarka Erdos (2142) -- 1 year ICC extension
   
2. 5.0 Steven Zierk (2155) -- qualified for Denker Tournament
   
3. 5.0 Daniel Naroditsky (2322) -- 1 year ICC extension
   
4. 5.0 Jeff Young (1980)
5. 4.5 Rohan Agarwal (2118)
   
6. 4.5 Adarsh Konda (2123)
   
7. 4.5 Alan Naroditsky (2029)
8. 4.0 Sreekar Jasthi (1901)
   
9. 4.0 Greg Bodwin (1752)
   
10. 4.0 Evan Sandberg (1955)
    

Without quite as much adventure or fanfare, the Saratoga High School team captured its fourth straight High School Championship. It has been a real pleasure for me to work with the nucleus of this team over the past 4+ years (see photo from 2004 at bottom right), achieving success at both the state and national level (3rd place at National High School in 2006). Congratulations to the following team members: Jeff Young (5.0), Marvin Shu (4.0), Charles Sun (4.0), Aaron Garg (4.0), David Chock (4.0), Alex Lun (3.0), Avinash Kumar (3.0) and Amol Aggarwal (1.0). I offer a final round of applause to All Star top board David (see photo at bottom center) and his teammate Marvin, who will graduate in a couple of weeks after playing chess together since elementary school.

Mukund and Isaac Share Top Junior High (7-8) Honors

(Junior High co-champions Isaac Zhang on left and Mukund Chillakanti.)

I watched the 7-8 Varsity section of the CalChess Scholastics closely for two reasons: quite a few of my students were playing and I saw no single clear favorite to win. In fact, I thought any one of the top six seeds, all rated above 1800, had a reasonable chance to climb to the top. Of course, I wished that one of my students would become champion, but without a doubt, the two most deserving players took the top honors.

Congratulations to Mukund Chillakanti and Isaac Zhang for winning five games and drawing only with each other. Mukund gained over 100 rating points in the past two months, highlighted by a 2075 performance at the National High School Championship with an impressive pair of wins against experts. On the other hand, Isaac has been a terror at the Sacramento Chess Club, winning nearly every adult honor possible, including Player of the Year. Honorable mention goes to Isaac's friend, Ted Xiao, who earned the 3rd place trophy by defeating two of the three highest seeds while losing only to Mukund.

Final Standings of 7-8 Varsity

1. 5.5 Mukund Chillakanti (1917) -- $50 gift certificate
   
2. 5.5 Isaac Zhang (1923) -- 1 year ICC extension
   
3. 5.0 Ted Xiao (1740) -- 1 year ICC extension
   
4. 5.0 Puneeth Gadangi (1656)
5. 5.0 Andrew Chen (1722)
6. 4.5 Sam Bekker (1911)
7. 4.5 Andrew Yeh (1847)
8. 4.5 Rahul Desirazu (1664)
   
9. 4.5 Vincent Tian (1674)
   
10. 4.5 Brian Wai (1690)

Kudos also to the Redwood Middle School team (photo on bottom right) for taking 1st place honors for the second year in a row! My students Brian Wai (4.5), Kevin Garbe (4.0), Evan Ye (4.0) and Sankash Shankar (3.0) proved once again that you don't need a superstar on board 1 to succeed. Thanks also to David Chock, Jeff Young and Charles Sun of nearby Saratoga High School for coaching and mentoring the team this year.

Finally, organizer Salman Azhar accurately commented at the awards ceremony that many of these players are friends off the chess board. They really love to goof off, as demonstrated in this blog post and the middle of the three photos below.

CalChess Scholastics Have Been USCF Rated

Since my initial report on the CalChess Scholastics featured Steven Zierk and FM Danya Naroditsky, I have now posted photos of the other two co-champs of the High School division. At left is Boglarka Erdos from Hungary, who is visiting California on vacation. At right is Jeff Young of Saratoga High School.

The individual and team results for the CalChess Scholastics are posted! Moreover, the tournament is now USCF rated!
I have also posted all of my photos on my Flickr page. Click to enjoy a slide show or simply to see the gallery of photos.

Short Report on CalChess Scholastics

(High School co-champs FM Danya Naroditsky and Steven Zierk. This was Danya's second straight 1st place finish, which is amazing considering that he is in 6th grade!)

I would like to congratulate the winners of the 33rd annual CalChess Scholastic State Championships in San Jose. The following participants distinguished themselves by winning one of the five Open divisions in a huge tournament of about 1050 players.

• High School K-12: Boglarka Erdos (from Hungary), Steven Zierk, FM Danya Naroditsky and Jeff Young (Zierk and Young qualify for Denker playoff)
  
• Junior High K-8: Mukund Chillakanti and Isaac Zhang
  
• Elementary 4-6: Yian Liou
  
• Elementary 4-5: Qijie "Jack" Zhu, Kyle Shin, Vikram Ganesh, Hemang Jangle and Jessica Zhu (no relation between the Zhu's)
  
• Primary K-3: Tanuj Vasudeva

The full results of the tournament are not available on the internet as of 12:30am on Monday. I hope everyone can understand that the staff is even more exhausted than the participants and their parents. Please check the official website again on Monday night.

In the meantime, you may wish to enjoy hundreds photos from our friends at ChessDryad (Mark Shelton and Richard Shorman). I am sure that other photographers will post their pictures online as well. In fact, I expect to post dozens of my photos on this blog over the next three days, in addition to the more detailed final report.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank the staff and many volunteers for ensuring a reasonably smooth and enjoyable tournament. I will single out three special individuals for personal recognition: first and foremost Organizer Salman Azhar, National Tournament Director John McCumiskey and CalChess President Tom Langland. Thank you!

Silicon Valley Challenge was a Success!

The 4th Silicon Valley Challenge took place on March 15 at the dance studios of the Century Arts Alliance Foundation. Despite a wide selection of chess tournaments in the South Bay, this event attracted 48 players ranging from master to novice. Although most of the participants were juniors, they competed not for trophies but for cash prizes. Thanks to the successful turnout, the total prize fund was increased to $700.

The 30 player Open section featured stiff competition at the top with 9 competitors rated 1800 and up. After four rounds of G/60, two players emerged from the fray with 4-0 scores: Fleford Redoloza rated 1897 (see photo at right) and this blogger. The perfect scores did not mean that the road to victory was easy. Redoloza, who got back into chess last fall after an extended break, defeated veteran expert Daniel Burkhard and two of the area's top K-6 players: Paul Richter (1988) and Alex Grossman (1720). On the other hand, I defeated three 1900s, facing especially tough resistance from teenagers Jay Kumar and Jeff Young, both who should reach 2000 by the end of the year. I intend to annotate the exciting last round game against my student Jeff and will post on this blog in a few days.

The other prizes in the Open section went to Jeff Young, Rohan Sathe, Jaydee Tenioso and Daniel Liu, all with three wins and one loss. The first three names should not surprise anyone, as they are all (under)rated above 1900. However, Daniel Liu came into the event rated just 1133 officially (1149 on the MSA website) and faced four straight opponents more than 400 points above him, beating three (including an A player) and losing only in an endgame to Sathe. He will gain over 200 USCF rating points for a performance rating over 2000! The funny story is that Daniel, the little brother of my student Rebekah, signed up for the U1400 section, but the sections had to be merged due to insufficient entries. Another player who had a good result yet didn't win a prize was 6 year old Tanuj Vasudeva (1547), who scored 50% against three A players and one B player. Daniel and Tanuj demonstrated that playing against stronger opponents is a win-win situation: either you gain rating points or experience--sometimes both!

Although those in the U1200 section had lower ratings, the competition among the 18 players was equally fierce. Congratulations to Kiarash Mavandad for winning with a perfect 4-0 score. William Weber, Vedaank Tiwari, Colin Ma and Vikram Vasan tied for second place at 3.0.

Thanks to organizer Charles Sun (see photo at left) and his always helpful parents for putting together another successful tournament. In spite of being a 10th grader at competitive Saratoga High School, Charles still finds the time to contribute to the chess community at least one weekend each year. The event ran smoothly and the venue in northeast San Jose was comfortable for both the players and the parents. Most, if not all, participants had a great time playing chess while indulging on extras such as complimentary croissants, chips, diet soda and water. Charles hopes to run another tournament when his school commitments allow. I'll be there!

Addendum March 20: The tournament has finally been USCF rated. Note that Daniel Liu's rating jumped from 1149 to 1372!