Friday, January 15

NorCal Top Adults - January 2016

GM Negi studies at Stanford University (credit: Stanford Daily)

  1. GM Negi, Parimarjan 2734 USCF 2664 FIDE
  2. GM Shankland, Sam 2723 2638
  3. GM Naroditsky, Daniel 2710 2634
  4. GM Chirila, Cristian 2599 2536
  5. GM Chirila
  6. GM Barbosa, Oliver 2593 2508
  7. GM De Firmian, Nick 2583 2508
  8. GM Kraai, Jesse 2573 2510
  9. GM Bhat, Vinay 2570 2519
  10. IM Mc Cambridge, Vincent 2515 2465
  11. IM Liou, Yian 2500 2414
  12. SM Sharma, Arun 2456 2362
  13. IM Mezentsev, Vladimir 2444 2359
  14. FM Wheeler, Cameron 2436 2369
  15. IM Pruess, David 2416 2350
  16. FM Panchanatham, Vignesh 2416 2344
  17. IM Viswanadha, Kesav 2415 2359
  18. FM Lee, Andy 2391 2317
  19. IM De Guzman, Ricardo 2387 2363
  20. FM Critelli, James 2366 2273
  21. IM Kaufman, Ray 2337 2315

http://www.fpawn.com/NorCalTopAdults.pdf

Thursday, January 7

Bay Area Teenage Mutant Chess Masters

Future GMs: Daniel Naroditsky (white) squares off against Sam Shankland in 2007.

Over the past decade, the Bay Area has become an incubator for the development of young chess talents.  Indeed, school age masters used to be a rare breed, with no more than one or two gracing local tournaments at the same time.  This changed at the 2006 CalChess Scholastics, which saw a quartet of masters compete in the K-12 section.  Moreover, two of the experts participating that year would go on to earn the highest title in chess: Grandmaster!

Today, the roster of teenage masters has mutated.  It no longer numbers in single figures, but rather in the 20s!  Only a few states around the country can boast that many adult masters.  Some of the most talented juniors earn the NM title already at age 10 or 11.


NorCal K-12 Masters (Age and January 2016 USCF rating)
  1. FM Wheeler, Cameron (15) 2436 (photo at right)
  2. IM Viswanadha, Kesav (16) 2416
  3. FM Panchanatham, Vignesh (15) 2415
  4. NM Zhu, Jack Qijie (17) 2313
  5. FM Taghizadeh, Rayan (13) 2312
  6. NM Hong, Andrew Z (11) 2306
  7. NM Banik, Siddharth G (15) 2265
  8. NM Jirasek, Ladia (15) 2257
  9. NM Zhao, Art (16) 2242
  10. WIM Eswaran, Ashritha (15) 2238
  11. NM Beilin, Allan J (16) 2231
  12. NM Virtanen, Teemu (16) 2230
  13. NM Klotz-Burwell, Hunter (17) 2225
  14. NM Bick, Gabriel J (16) 2223
  15. NM Wang, Michael (14) 2217
  16. NM Nagarajan, Pranav (16) 2217
  17. NM Chow, Colin (16) 2209
  18. NM Apte, Neel (17) 2205
  19. NM Iyengar, Udit (15) 2205
  20. NM Stearman, Josiah P (12) 2203 (photo at right)
  21. nm Wang, Michael Lei (16) 2196*
  22. FM Vasudeva, Tanuj (14) 2186*
  23. nm Liu, Daniel (18) 2159*
 * previously broke 2200, but slipped back down

In addition, several local juniors have been awarded the Candidate Master title by the World Chess Federation in recognition of excellent performance at international youth tournaments.  These young stars are well on track to become masters themselves.

  • CM Senthilkumar, Pranav (13) 1975
  • CM Bayaraa, Chinguun (10) 1889 (photo at right)
  • WCM Garai, Antara (11) 1821
  • WCM Zhao, Chenyi (12) 1775
  • CM Nachiappan, Aghilan (8) 1743
  • WCM Eswaran, Aksithi (9) 1709

Make sure to check out the NorCal Top 20 Juniors at my chess teaching website.
Photo credit: Richard Shorman at ChessDryad.

Monday, January 4

New Year's Championship in Oakland

Tsegmed Batchuluun
Mongolian GM Tsegmed Batchuluun dominated the Bay Area Chess New Year's Championship, scoring five wins and only one draw despite being paired with four blacks.  He impressively knocked off the top two seeds, GM Parimarjan Negi and GM Yaroslav Zherebukh, both rated over 2600 FIDE.  Scheduled for the first three days of 2016, the tournament drew a relatively modest turnout of 127 participants to a new venue, the Marriott at the Oakland Convention Center.


Next: Golden State Open in Concord on January 15-18.  This event has attracted an average of 280 players over the past six years, making it the largest annual adult chess event in Northern California.  Advance entry listBe there!