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Record Turnout at 2013 Junior Chess Congress Print E-mail
By Salman Azhar   
March 24, 2013
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Trophies for Ages 6 & under on display. Photo Azleena Salleh Azhar
The 2013 Junior Chess Congress kicked off on March 23 at the SFO Airport Hyatt Regency by breaking the previous record of 370 players.

Aksithi Eswaran (952) beat all the grown boys to win the 6 & under Championship with a perfect score. Pradyum Chitlu, Micah Stearman, Leonard Vu, Arnav Lingannagari, Matthew Hwang, and Amar Dhami tied for second place with 4 points each. All the players in this section earned a trophy.

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Arjun Sankar eyes the game on Board 1. Photo Azleena Salleh Azhar
The 8 & under section starts Sunday. The remaining sections have played 3 out of 5 rounds.
Edward Li (2045) and Thomas Hart (1752) lead the 20 & under section with perfect scores of 3.0 and will face off against each other in the fourth round. Charles Tang (1951) leads the 18 & under section with perfect score of 3.0. Alekhya Nandula (1788), Vikram Vasan (1837), and Archit Dasika (1772) are tied at the top with 2.5 points in the 16 & under section.
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Archit Dasika has gained about 400 rating points in the last four months, Photo Azleena Salleh Azhar
Cameron Wheeler (2291), Siddharth Banik (2117), and Michael Lei Wang were tied with perfect 3.0 after 3 rounds in the 14 & under section. Tanuj Vasudeva, Jeffrey Tao, and Alexander Feghhi are tied with a perfect score of 3.0 in the 12 & under section. The 10 & under section has a 6-way tie between David Li, Callaghan McCarty-Snead, Antara Garai, Charlie Jones, Dmitri Dobrynin, and Maurya Palusa.

Bay Area Chess (8, 14, 16, and 20 & under), NorCal House of Chess (6, 10, and 12 & under), Foster City Chess (14 & under), Berkeley Chess School (10 & under), Coalinga Club (20 & under), Liu Chess School (18 & under), and Marin Scholastic (16 & under) are contenders for the top honors in team competition. NorCal House has already sealed the 6 & under section with Liu Chess, Berkeley Chess, and Bay Area Chess rounding up the team standings. The 8 & under section starts tomorrow with Bay Area Chess occupying the top seed.

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The scorers enjoy the hotel gourmet food between rounds. Photo Azleena Salleh Azhar
Salman Azhar, Tom Langland, John McCumiskey, Richard Koepcke, Scott Mason, and Jordan Langland are organizing and directing the event. The event is sponsored by BayAreaChess and CalChess have sponsored the event. You can find current pairings and standings at Bayareachess.com/usjr.

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Senior TD Jordan Langland strikes a pose. Photo Azleena Salleh Azhar
 
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