Chess Students Head Off To College

All smiles on graduation day.

For almost two decades, I have been blessed with the opportunity to coach some of the brightest young minds in Northern California.  Simply spoken, smart children play chess, and chess offers a competitive arena to exercise their brain muscles.  Of course, I always knew my students had the cerebral skill to excel.  And every June, it seems that the graduates move on to some of the best colleges in America.  Well done mates!

The High School graduating Classes of 2015 and 2016 included more than a dozen of my former chess trainees, four who achieved the master level.  Their college choices were, quite literally, all over the map.  Six preferred the short commute to Berkeley, Stanford, UC Santa Cruz and San Jose State.  Another signed up for the short flight to UC Irvine.  The remaining students apparently wanted to get away from home--far, far away.  They enrolled at MIT, New York University, Carnegie Mellon, Wesleyan, U Mass and Washington University (Saint Louis).  Quite a list, I dare say!  

The following list shows the universities all around the country where 51 of my former chess students enrolled at (includes incoming freshmen).  Two prominent Bay Area schools top of the list.  Roughly 2/3 stayed close to home, choosing to study at one of a dozen California schools.  If it is not the nice weather, then it must be the worldwide acclaim of the University of California.  Indeed, my list includes 7 of the 9 undergraduate UC campuses.   

• 14 = UC Berkeley
• 6 = Stanford 
• 3 = MIT and UC San Diego
• 2 = Duke, Carnegie Mellon, NYU, UCLA and UC Santa Cruz  
• 1 = Cambridge (UK), Yale, Wesleyan, UMass, Rutgers, Northwestern, Washington (StL), Caltech, Pomona, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, Pacific, San Jose State and Puget Sound

Note: The above list only includes undergraduate institutions and not graduate schools.

New Kid on the Block: GM Parimarjan Negi

The Bay Area has landed a new chess prodigy!  Indeed, this kid earned the Grandmaster title at the tender age of 13 years, 4 months and 22 days. He stands today as the second youngest GM in history, beating Magnus Carlsen by less than a week and the Chinese phenom Wei Yi by four months.  (Only Sergey Karjakin was younger.)  Last month, the grown-up prodigy led his native India to a surprising bronze medal at the Chess Olympiad in Norway.  Playing board 1, he scored 6.5 out of 10 against some of the best players in the world, drawing with Levon Aronian and losing just once to Fabiano Caruana.  This week, he resumes his studies away from the chess board, as a freshman at Stanford University.

Who is it?  Meet GM Parimarjan Negi, rated 2750 USCF and 2669 FIDE (#79 in the world).  Click here for his personal website.  New In Chess magazine interviewed Negi for the latest issue, and Chessbase website reprinted the single page article here (with permission).  Check out the latest chess player at the Farm!

GM Negi is registered as the top seed at the National G/60 and G/30 Championships this weekend in Santa Clara.  Can anyone stop him?  

The game below, a crushing win against the Berlin defense at the recent Olympiad, was cited by Negi as his "best game."  In the final position, White threatens to sacrifice his Queen on h7 for a simple checkmate with two rooks.

Amateur Team Fever Hits the Bay

(The photo at left shows the 2011 Amateur Team West champions, USC captained by IM Jack Peters. On the right is the 2000-01 Stanford chess team at the Pan Am Intercollegiate, with FM Philip Wang playing against GM Yuri Shulman of UT-Dallas.)

For more than 35 years, the President's Day weekend has been dedicated to the People's Tournament. Unfortunately, the traditional venue at UC Berkeley no longer was available for the past four years. Local organizers tried to find a viable replacement.

Now I can recommend a unique national tournament on February 18-20: Amateur Team West. Instead of playing just for yourself, join a 4-player team (plus an optional alternate). If you score 2.5 or more, you win the match and your team earns a point. Pairings each round are done by team, not individual players. (The individual scores contribute to the first tiebreaker.) The team that scores the most out of 6 rounds wins the tournament and advances to an internet playoff against champions from East, Midwest and South.

Sound fun? Yeah! Here are the details:

• Event: Amateur Team West (there's also East, Midwest and South)
• Dates: Feb 18-20 (no 2-day schedule)
• Venue: Santa Clara Hyatt Regency ($109/night)
• Rating: Average of top 4 < 2200 + board 4 within 1000 of board 3; use January ratings
• Format: 6-SS (team), all teams in one big section
• Rounds: Sat/Sun 11:30 and 5:00, Mon 10:00 and 3:30
• Time control: 30/90, SD/60 (max 5 hours per round)
• Prizes: Team Trophy and four Commemorative Clocks: top 3 overall, top U2000, U1800, U1600, U1400, U1200, top family, top all-junior, top school, top company plus board prizes
• Playoff: 1st place team faces winners from East, Midwest and South in an internet playoff!
• Entry: $188/team or $47/player by Feb 14
• Flyer: http://www.bayareachess.com/events/12/usatw12.pdf
• Info: http://www.bayareachess.com/events/12/usatw.php
  

If you are trying to win the tournament and thus qualify for the internet playoff, then you will probably need a team with average of 2100+. No doubt, whoever is on board 1 will face strong masters, probably a few IMs and maybe a GM. There are two common strategies to build a winning team:

• Balanced team, meaning everyone between 2050 and 2300
• Stack team, meaning two (or three) high rated masters and a low but underrated board 4 to keep the average under 2200 (note: the 1000 point rule prevents a team of 2600, 2500, 2400, 1299)
  

I prefer a balanced team, but the stack lineup can be very successful if board 4 is a B player who draws against experts. Keep in mind that this event uses the January rating list, generated shortly after Thanksgiving, so December and January tournaments do not count.

How to find a team? If you can play with your family, school, or long time chess buddies, then that always seems the most fun. Although everyone plays in the same section, there are plenty of class prizes (by rating) so a high average is not mandatory. If you can't find anyone, or have just 2 or 3 players, then register and get onto the "Looking for" lists.

Finally, make sure to pick a creative team name--there are special prizes! The 99 percent have already chosen to "Occupy FIDE". The "ChessPunks" (see photo at right from a year ago) may sound like a rap team from Da Hood, but instead they study the openings of classical composers like Taimanov, Reti and Philidor. And the organizer Salman Azhar asked me if I knew of any "fPWNers". Regretfully, I will not be able to attend, so my students will have to PWN for me.

Chess: The Road to College

(Where does this internationally certified chess nut go to college?)

The end of summer brings upon us the annual ritual of starting school. And those who managed to graduate from high school in June now begin a whole new chapter of their lives. Four of the Bay Area's elite scholastic players moved into college dorms this week. I was fortunate to have taught three of the four. They combined to win the past four state High School titles, with each victorious at least once. This post serves as a small tribute.

IM Steven Zierk definitely counts as the star of the class of 2011, both academically and based on chess results. He had many phenomenal results, but three stand out in my mind:

1. Clear 1st in A section of 2007 People's tournament with a published rating of 1527.
2. Beat GM Loek van Wely in 27 moves with black at 2009 Western States (Reno).
3. Gold medal at 2010 World Youth U-18 in Greece, earning the IM title.

While chess played big role in Steven's youth, he had a broad range of interests. As I found out accompanying him at the 2008 US Open in Dallas, he loves math puzzles and devours books of different genres. An active athlete, he played and refereed soccer, earned a second degree black belt in tae kwon do and even joined the school track and field team (shot put). Of course, he also excelled at Los Gatos High School. The photo at the top of this post leaves no doubt where Steven chose to go for college: MIT.


A year ago, NM Evan Sandberg (photo at right) became my sixth student to achieve the rank of master. Yet his greatest achievement came in 2009, when he shared 1st place in the High School section at the CalChess Scholastics (with Yian Liou), thereby earning the right to play in the Denker Invitational in Indianapolis. An active member of the Mechanics' Institute chess club, Evan continued to participate in the Tuesday Night Marathon through this summer. The streak will necessarily end since Evan decided to attend Rutgers University in New Jersey.

NM Rohan Agarwal (photo at left) reached 2200 despite never being one of my students. However, I wrote a tribute to his aggressive playing style titled "The Master Gambiteer". Sadly, he didn't have time for many tournaments over the past two years at Irvington High School in Fremont. He did leave a mark by teaching the next generation at Weibel Elementary. Rohan won't need to go far for college as he decided to attend UC Berkeley.


Expert Nicholas Karas (photo at right) of Rio Americano High School in Sacramento started out with a provisional rating of 395 and then rocketed through the rating scale to a peak of 2159. Much of the teaching credit goes to his first coach--and my longtime student--NM Daniel Schwarz. Nicholas saved the best for his senior year, winning clear 1st in the High School section at the CalChess Scholastics and then attending the Denker Invitational in Orlando. He also became a Golden Bear as he began studying at UC Berkeley.

ConGRADulations to Steven, Evan, Rohan and Nicholas! (I admit that I'm a little late.)

Each year, the most talented young chess players typically get admitted to the best universities around the state and nation. Take GM Robert Hess, America's top rated junior, as an example; he just matriculated at Yale University. Among my growing group of ex-students, there's no doubt that Berkeley has become the most popular school, with at least a half dozen: David C, Jeff Y, Kevin H, Charles S, Michael L and now Nicholas. Five of these six reached 2000 at chess, establishing a quasi benchmark for future Berkeley applicants. And I believe three guys remain at Stanford (Marvin S, Aaron G and Adam G) after the June graduation of Daniel Schwarz.

Numbers aside, however... Go Stanford! Beat Cal!

US Chess League Semifinals: San Francisco vs Miami

In recent years, the San Francisco Bay Area sports franchises have not performed well. The A's 49ers, Raiders, Warriors and Earthquakes all try to out-stink each other. At least the Giants and Sharks have been competitive of late, although the hockey team seems allergic to winning playoff matches. College sports fans may look forward to the 112th Big Game, although few would have predicted before the season that Stanford, not Cal, has a chance to play in the Rose Bowl. Go Stanford! Beat Cal!!

Fortunately, at least one San Francisco franchise has made the playoffs for five straight seasons! Congratulations to the Mechanics, competing in the US Chess League, for making local fans proud. The Mechanics finished at 6.5-3.5 in the regular season standings, earning second place in the competitive Western Division.

Featuring four strong Grandmasters and three International Masters each with two GM norms, the team has strength and depth unparalleled in the league. This season, the Mechanics' captain IM John Donaldson submitted four different lineups featuring Grandmasters on both boards 1 and 2: Josh Friedel + Jesse Kraai (see photo at left), Patrick Wolff + Kraai, Wolff + Vinay Bhat and Kraai + Bhat. In fact, the 2469 rated lineup of Friedel, Kraai, IM Sam Shankland and NM Yian Liou likely was the strongest in the history of the league, at least by numbers.

However, the formula of success for the San Francisco team always has been the play of talented (and underrated) juniors on boards 3 and 4. This year's roster included four members age 18 or younger: IM Shankland, FM Daniel Naroditsky, NM Gregory Young and NM Yian Liou (see photo at right). The first three were veterans, having participated already in previous years. Newcomer Yian Liou, the #2 ranked 12 year old in the nation, turned out to be the team's star! Playing in all but two weeks, Yian scored 6.5 out of 9 for a performance rating of 2412, including wins against IM Mehmed Pasalic of Chicago and WFM Bayaraa Zorigt of Dallas.

Tonight, the Mechanics face the Miami Sharks in the semifinal round of the playoffs! These rivals squared off twice in the regular season, with the local boys winning 3:1 in week 3 and drawing 2:2 in week 6. But the playoffs have favored Miami over the years, with the Sharks eliminating the Mechanics in both 2005 and 2007. Who will win this year? Tune into ICC between 5:30 and 9:00 to watch the action LIVE!

Playoff Semifinals: San Francisco vs Miami

1. GM Jesse Kraai vs GM Julio Becerra 1/2
   
2. IM Blas Lugo vs GM Vinay Bhat 0-1
   
3. IM David Pruess vs IM Alejandro Moreno Roman 0-1
   
4. NM Eric Rodriguez vs NM Yian Liou 1-0
   

UPDATE on Monday night: It was not to be! San Francisco got pummeled on three boards and lost 1.5:2.5. Congrats to the Sharks and good luck in the USCL Championship!

UPDATE on Wednesday night: Read the thorough post mortem by team captain IM John Donaldson at the Mechanics' blog.

USCF Top 100 Juniors (U21) for June

A whopping ten Northern California juniors are ranked in the top 50 of the USCF Top 100 Juniors (U21) list for June! For those mathematically challenged, this statistic means 20% of the nation's elite juniors play in the Bay Area!

Five of these ten stars are still in K-12 school; the other five attend local universities. In fact, four of the top 100 young chess players in the country can be found on the Stanford University chess team (see photo above). I guess that's just one more reason to get good grades and apply to Stanford. Except for those offering chess scholarships, I wonder if any other universities can match this feat?

• #6 IM Sam Shankland, 2481, 17
  
• #11 FM Elliott Liu, 2405, 19 (attends Stanford; from S. California)
• #15 FM Danya Naroditsky, 2378, 13
  
• #20 NM Steven Zierk, 2333, 15
  
• #26 NM Daniel Schwarz, 2313, 19 (attends Stanford)
  
• #36 NM Julian Landaw, 2284, 19 (attends UC Berkeley; from S. California)
• #42 NM Drake Wang, 2262, 19 (attends Cal Poly SLO)
  
• #46 NM Greg Young, 2249, 14
• #48 NM Jimmy Heiserman, 2236, 20 (attends UC Davis; from Texas)
• #50 NM Rohan Agarwal, 2231, 16
• #53 NM Vaishnav Aradhyula, 2226, 18 (attends Stanford; from Arizona)
• #96 Christopher De Sa, 2158, 18 (attends Stanford; from Arizona)
  

10th Anniversary of Kasparov Talk at Stanford

(From left to right: NM Jordy Mont-Reynaud, FM Philip Wang, NM Vinay Bhat, GM Garry Kasparov and the Karnazes twins. Photo from ChessCity.)

Never in my life will I forget the events of April 21-22, 1999. For two days, I had the honor to meet the reigning World Champion Garry Kasparov as he visited Stanford University. The world's top player was a guest of the Stanford Presidential Lecture series, although much of the job of hosting him fell to the Russian department and the nationally ranked Stanford chess team.

My chess teammates picked up Kasparov and his manager, former tennis pro Owen Williams, at San Francisco International airport and even stopped for ice cream on the way to the Westin Hotel on El Camino at University Avenue. That evening, Stanford officials and chess players met for a formal dinner at Spago's in downtown Palo Alto. Kasparov discussed everything and anything not related to chess, from world politics to the Yankees to restaurants in Rio de Janeiro. He was friendly and quite talkative, but while dessert was served, Kasparov abruptly announced it was getting late and he had to return to the hotel to finish his speech. He literally walked out while everyone else shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. I was the first to see the World Champion nervously pacing up and down Lytton Street. He politely pointed out to me that none of the passerbys identified him, something that he found odd for such a highly educated community.

On the next day, Kasparov met with the Russian department in the morning and then he had two events with chess players scheduled for the afternoon and evening. The first was a Q&A session with many of the Bay Area's elite juniors at the time, including masters Jordy Mont-Reynaud, Vinay Bhat and Philip Wang. Vinay and Kasparov bantered back and forth, analyzing crazy variations in the spectacular double rook sacrifice game Kasparov versus Topalov that was played just two months earlier. Kasparov said then that was the best game that he ever played. It was a pleasure to see the event go off successfully as I organized much of the publicity, including inviting the kids to attend. Nervously, I introduced Kasparov to the young audience as the greatest chess player of all time, a statement that I still agree with today.

The highlight of the visit came on the second evening. Stanford University's Science and Engineering lecture hall, usually filled with Biology students, was jammed packed with well over 500 Bay Area chess enthusiasts. Nobody reckoned with such an enthusiastic turnout and, unfortunately, the fire marshall ordered dozens of people sitting in the aisles to leave. Chess club President FM Adrian Keatinge-Clay introduced the World Champ.

Kasparov lectured for about 45 minutes on the "Limits of Human Performance" in chess and sports. According to Kasparov, chess can be a long and cruel game determined by time constraints and sometimes one crucial move. "If you lose psychologically, then you will lose on the board," he said. Later Kasparov took questions from a panel that included computer science professor Terry Winograd and Stanford football coach Tyrone Willingham. One controversial topic was the famous match that Kasparov lost to IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997 (see photo at right), the first time that a computer defeated the top chess player in the world. Check out two articles in Stanford publications about this exciting evening: the Stanford Report and the Stanford Daily.

I can say this event was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. I wasn't yet a master, but I met the strongest player in history. I only wonder if Kasparov would still recognize me today. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet him at SuperNationals earlier this month.

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.