| National K-1 Co-Champion Tanuj Vasudeva
Posted by fpawn on Monday, May 12 @ 05:40:05 CDT |
Imagine that you sit at the board and your opponent barely is tall enough to see the pieces on the other side of the table. His rating over 1500 is a whopping 250 times his age, which must be some sort of record even for the scholastic hotbed known as the Bay Area. While most youngsters his age practice penmanship on large sheets of paper in school, he neatly records his moves in a chess scorebook. However, it is the smile that intimidates you (thanks to Mark Shelton of ChessDryad for the photos). How can you beat this 6 year old tactical monster? After 20 moves, he wins a pawn. Then a piece. You suddenly realize that you have just been Tanuj'ed!
Rated more than 200 points higher than any other kid his age in the country, Tanuj Vasudeva picked up his first national title today at the Bert Lerner National Elementary Championships in Pittsburgh. He won all seven of his games in the K-1 section against opponents from Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois and New York. Tanuj shared the top honors with Roland Feng of Washington State, who also finished at 7-0. I predict, given his talent and love for chess, that this is the first of several national titles for Tanuj.
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| CalChess Scholastics Coming Up Soon!
Posted by fpawn on Saturday, May 10 @ 05:38:56 CDT |
Now up to 828 players and projecting a turnout of 1200 for the CalChess Scholastics on May 17-18 in San Jose!
Check out the list at http://www.calchessscholastics.org/entries.php The entry deadline is Wednesday, May 14, but do not wait until the last minute! If you haven't signed up, go to http://www.calchessscholastics.org/register.php
Please beware the new schedule for the CalChess Scholastics. There are several major differences from previous years: 1. 1-3 Open is now two days, 2. K-6 Novice (U600) and K-6 Unrated is Sunday only and 3. the time control has been extended to G/60 for 1-3 Open, G/75 for 4-5 Open and G/90 for 4-6 Open, 7-8 Open and 9-12 Open.
See the schedule below, or for complete info visit http://www.calchessscholastics.org/rounds.php
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| Vinay Bhat in semi-finals of WCL tournament of champions.
Posted by tomlangland on Tuesday, April 15 @ 02:39:32 CDT |
Vinay Bhat |
In the 2008 U.S. State champion of champions tournament , held on World Chess Live on April 12 and 19-20 , IM David Vigorito of Massachusettes and our IM Vinay Bhat of Northern California won the Eastern and Western divisions. IM-elect Ray Robson and IM Enrico Sevillano came in second in their respective divisions, so they also advance to the semifinals. Bhat will face Sevillano while Robson takes on Vigorito. The format for the qualifier was a blitz (five minutes+ one second incremement) double-round robin.
Standings
Western Conference, 14 games total
12.5 CofC-NorthCalif -- IM Vinay Bhat
10.5 CofC-SoCal -- IM Enrico Sevillano
9.0 CofC-Arizona -- IM Levon Altounian
8.5 CofC-SDakota -- IM Sandor Kustar
8.5 CofC-Hawaii - NM Cornelius Rubsammen
To watch the semi-finals on April 19, Saturday and finals on April 20, Sunday, download the Dasher interface for World Chess Live.The semifinals will be played at a time control of G/60 with a three-second increment. Click here for complete rules. If you are a USCF member, you are eligible for six free months of WCL. To register, please go to http://www.worldchesslive.com/uscf/ and follow the instructions on the page. Then "observe" the World Chess Live handles of the final four, "Cofc-MA" Vigorito, "Cofc-NorthCalif" for Vinay Bhat, "Cofc-Florida" for Robson and "Cofc-Socal" for Sevillano. Be sure to download the software in advance so you can watch the thrilling showdown for one of two final U.S. Championship spots.
Reprinted with permission from US Chess Life Online
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| Nicholas Nip Youngest Master in American History at Age 9
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, March 05 @ 16:32:54 CST |
NM Nicholas Nip |
NM Nicholas Nip made chess history today by becoming the nations youngest Master in history at the age of 9 years 11 months, shattering GM Hikaru Nakamura's record of 10 years 3 months. This record is one of the most prestigious accomplishments in American scholastic chess. Nicholas is the first 9 year old Chess Master in the history of American chess. To give you an idea, Bobby Fischer broke this record many years ago as a 13 year old.
Nicholas managed this remarkable feat in 75 tournaments in a time frame of 3 years and 3 months. Nicholas's rise has been nothing short of meteoric...a constant rise with very little stalls or setbacks. In Nicholas's very first tournament he won the 1st grade championship title in the Northern Cal Regional Championships. From that time until now, Nicholas captured several prestigious titles including K-3 national champion (won while in 2nd grade), Calchess State Kindergarten, K-3 and K-6 Championships. Nicholas has a FIDE rating of 2143. In the last 6 months Nicholas has had a positive score against NM’s including wins against many notable Bay Area NM's.
Despite his young age, Nicholas has managed in his short chess career to be a consistent winner. Today Nicholas went undefeated in a Mechanics Institute Quad including a dramatic win against 2339 rated NM Ronald Cusi. Nicholas was in a dominating position, which Cusi struggled to hold in time pressure before finally losing on time. This result was enough to lift Nicholas from 2187 to 2207. Of course Nicholas will be taking a short break from chess until the next supplement comes out! Chess fun sometimes has to be sacrificed for the sake of chess history.
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| Richard Shorman is Chosen as USCF February Volunteer of the Month
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, February 13 @ 06:30:45 CST |
Richard Shorman |
Renowned chess coach, writer and photographer Richard Shorman was recognized by the USCF as the volunteer of the month for February 2008.
Richard has done most of his volunteer work locally in the Bay Area, much of it for Calchess. Richard for the last decade has been a regular fixture at local tournaments which he documents using a Nikon camera with a fancy zoom lense which Calchess donated to him a few years ago (Richard is the official Calchess photographer). You can find Richard’s chess photo collection in its entirety at www.chessdryad.com.
Richard has taught thousands of kids for the Bay Area, and has been a chess coach for many of the main chess schools in the bay area including Success Chess, Berkeley Chess School, the Mission San Jose Chess Team, and probably many others that I don’t know about. .Richard has always had a non-political stance in the highly political bay area chess scene, and has always had unselfish motivations in promoting and teaching chess. By working with many organizations, Richard has set a fine example to many on how chess should be taught and coached to grade school kids. Richard was teaching and coaching kids using technology and exciting methods, way before the current scholastic chess craze. He inspired many future coaches and organization leaders including myself.
Although he is rarely recognized as such, Richard is one of the best coaches in the country for grade school kids. His mentors for teaching chess include C.J.S Purdy, Ruben Fine, and Paul Morphy. The bay area definately has its share of micreants in the scholastic chess scene...profiteers, liars, thieves, pretend chess masters etc. etc...one thing is for sure in the wild west chess scene Richard Shorman is definately one of the good guys.
Please read the tribute I did to Richard seven years back in my early days of webmastering here: |
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| Robert James Fischer (1943-2008)
Posted by fpawn on Friday, January 18 @ 19:46:36 CST |
Robert James Fischer, child prodigy and world chess champion, passed away yesterday in Iceland at the age of 64. He had been ill for quite some time, but the specific cause of death has not yet been released. The pinnacle of his life was when he took on the legendary chess machine of the Soviet Union in 1972 and defeated reigning world champion Boris Spassky to capture the crown. He was the 11th world chess champion!
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| Daniel Naroditsky Conquers the World!
Posted by fpawn on Wednesday, November 28 @ 16:16:31 CST |
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Congratulations to Northern California youngster FM Daniel Naroditsky for winning the under 12 division at the World Youth Chess Festival in Turkey! Ranked #1 for his age in America for the past two years and as the 2007 CalChess High School Champion, Danya has been used to success in chess. He also won a medal at the 2006 Pan American Youth Chess Festival. But the World stage is something much bigger.
Danya finished with a remarkable score of 9.5 out of 11 against the
world's top youths in his age group. He actually tied for first place
with top ranked wunderkind FM Illya Nyzhnyk (2377) from Ukraine, but
Danya had the superior tiebreaks. In addition to the gold medal, Danya will receive the automatic FIDE Master title for this performance.
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