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
  

ConGRADulations to David, Marvin and Kevin!

HIGH SCHOOL

GRADUATES 2008!

Three of my present and past students just graduated from High School. The Saratoga High School ceremony was yesterday, June 12. This section is a small tribute to each of them.

David Chock (2094 USCF, photos at top) completed four years as the top board for Saratoga High School. Shortly after I began teaching him in 2003, David won the U2000 section in Sacramento with a 6-0 score--as the lowest rated player, thus setting the record for the most rating points gained in one tournament by a student of mine! His greatest moment of glory came at the 2006 National High School Championship when he nearly won the whole enchilada, even defeating top seeded IM Alex Lenderman (reigning World U16 Champion) on the stage. David's school won five straight state championships dating back to middle school and even won three top 5 team trophies at the annual Nationals in the spring. In the past two years, he helped mold the young players from Redwood Middle School into a strong team that has now won two state team titles itself. As a recognition for how long we worked together, David joins Daniel Schwarz as a lifetime emeritus student. David will attend the University of California at Berkeley in the fall.

Marvin Shu (1804 USCF, photo at left) probably was better at math than chess, but he sure had fun playing the royal game. My earliest recollection of Marvin came from a game in middle school when he checkmated a higher rated opponent with two bishops against two rooks (even number of pawns). I also remember once thinking of how to scold him for playing on down a rook against a 1900 in tournament, when hours later he drew the game! I don't know if that's determination or just plain dumb luck. After graduating with highest honors from Saratoga High School, Marvin will attend my alma mater, Stanford University, in the fall.

Kevin Hwa (1802 USCF, photo at right) was never a star chess player, but studied the royal game for its beauty. As a natural attacker and a disciple of gambit openings, Kevin loved to play with fire on the board and occasionally even burned himself. After considering some east coast and midwest schools, Kevin finally chose the University of California at Berkeley for the fall.

Congratulations to all three graduates! Hopefully you will remember your days as a chess player when you're older and have an accomplished career.

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.