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
  

Saratoga Wins Santa Clara County High School Championship

The top ranked Saratoga High School chess team dominated the 2010 Santa Clara County High School Chess Championship on February 6 at Monta Vista High School. While Saratoga has won five straight CalChess state scholastic titles, Monta Vista won the county chess league two months ago and was looking for more. Order was restored to the universe as Saratoga players took home four of the top five place trophies, plus the perpetual trophy awarded to the top team.

• Final standings
• Photos at top: Charles, Evan and Kevin
• Photos at right: Brian and Sankash

The 41 player tournament ended in a tie for 1st place between Saratoga senior Charles Sun (1920) and sophomore Evan Ye (1811), both at 4.5 out of 5 after they drew their last round head-to-head game. Freshman Kevin Garbe (1743) and sophomore Brian Wai (1914) took home the 4th and 5th place trophies, respectively. Rounding out the four-way tie for third with 4.0 out of 5 were Monta Vista senior Vishal Dasari (1848) at 3rd place and freshman Chris Wu (1851) at 6th place. In the all-important team standings, Saratoga's top three combined for 13.0 while Monta Vista only managed 11.0.

Kudos to Charles and Evan, plus the rest of the Saratoga team! (Rolland Wu and Sankash Shankar both finished at 3.0/5.) The players built on the success from the New Year's Open and Golden State Open, where Evan, Charles and Brian combined to pilfer over $1600. Next up are the Denker Qualifier in March and the CalChess Scholastics in April. Can the Saratoga dynasty capture a record setting sixth consecutive state K-12 team title?

Fpawn Rating List - Largest Gains in 2008

(Rebekah poses with GM Susan Polgar at the Polgar Invitational in Texas last summer. This photo was taken from Polgar's excellent chess blog.)

Now that the December ratings have been released, it is time to look back at the improvements over the past 12 months (December 2007 to December 2008). A total of 20 students took advantage of my private lessons throughout the entire year 2008. All but one increased his or her USCF rating, with the average gain coming to 122 points. Five students (25%) impressively gained over 200 points!

The statistics become more significant when you consider that most of my students are already highly ranked, Six current students are rated over 2000 and three of those have an international rating. Another eight are A players; yet another eight are B players. All of these players know from experience how much harder it is to gain points at higher ratings, both due to the stiffer competition and because of the ratings formula (lower K factor).

Congratulations to CalChess Polgar representative Rebekah for demonstrating once again that, contrary to stereotypes, girls can beat all of the guys at chess! She gained nearly 300 points, jumping all the way to class A from a midrange class C rating last year. Her numbers actually pale in comparison to her little brother DanielL (see photo at right), who unbelievably gained almost 1000 points (from 734P to 1712)--he only began lessons with me in the middle of the year. "Math deity" Brian nearly matched Rebekah's success, earning 275 points to lead Saratoga High School's freshmen. Brian's teammates Kevin and EvanY also had a successful year and all three are now solid B players. Last yet certainly not least, CalChess Denker representative Steven cooled off a bit, but I dare say that improving by 177 points in the rare air of expert and master sections is no less impressive than the 554 points that he gained in 2007.

1. Rebekah +298
2. Brian +275
3. MichaeL +250
4. Tyler +240
5. Kevin +210
6. Steven +177
7. Yian +169
8. EvanY +163
9. Nicholas +132
10. James +113

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.
  

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.