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Chess Life Online 2014 February Hundreds Compete in US Junior Chess Congress in San Fran
Chess Life Online 2014 February Hundreds Compete in US Junior Chess Congress in San Fran | Hundreds Compete in US Junior Chess Congress in San Fran |
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| By Salman Azhar | |
| March 27, 2013 | |
Cameron Wheeler plans his win to the National Title
Bay Area Chess and Norcal House dominated the club competition winning three National titles each bringing their tally in Junior Congress to eight and six National Titles, respectively. Coalinga, Liu Chess, Foster City, and Berkeley Chess won one section each to keep up their streak of National Titles.
Edward Li (2045) sealed his National Championship title in
the fourth round and won clear first with 4.5 points. Thomas Hart and Blake
Wong tied for second with 4.0. After an epic see-saw battle Coalinga Chess and
Bay Area Chess shared the National Championship title.
Charles Tang (1951) won all his games to finish in clear
first with 5.0. Sammy Kennedy (1747) came in second place with 3.5 while Andrew
Tang, Kevin Wu, and Charles Ledesma tied for third place with 3 points. Liu
Chess dominated from the beginning to win their third National title in 3
years.
Alekhya Nandula (1788), Vikram Vasan (1837), and Dhanush
Venkatesh (1706), all of Bay Area Chess, earned their first National
Championship Title as they tied for the top spot in 16 & under, with 4.0
points. Bay Area Chess dictated terms from the very start to win their second
National title this year.
Assistant Organizer Michele Doan does a trophy dance
Cameron Wheeler (2291), World Youth Silver Medalist, and
Siddharth Banik (2117) shared the National Championship in 14 & under
section after finishing with 4.5 points with a hard fought draw to complement
their four wins in the other games. This section produced the most exciting
team competition with the top 4 teams separated by ½ point each in the entire
tournament. In the end, Foster City won the National Title with 11 points,
Albany Middle followed with 10.5, Bay Area Chess with 10, and NorCal House with
9.5 points.
Alexander Feghhi (1822) produced a special performance in
the 12 & under section, scoring a perfect 5.0, including a win against a
FIDE Master, on his way to his first National Title. Six players tied for
second with 4 points. NorCal House won their second National Title with comfortable
1.5 points over Liu Chess Club in the second place.
GM Enrico Sevillano joins the celebrity gathering of titled players
David Li (1714) and Dmitri Dobrynin (948) tied with perfect
scores in an 86-player 10 & under section. Seven players tied for third
players for third place. Berkeley Chess School and Norcal House tied for team
championship with 12 points.
Salman Azhar and Joaquin Perkins
Joaquin
Perkins, who tied for 4th (10th on tiebreaks) at the 2012 World Youth, repeated
as champion in the 99-player 8 & Under section to win his 6th national
scholastic title. His family made a late decision to return to San
Francisco to have Joaquin compete in this event after he recently posted a
2400+ performance rating in a recent G/30' quad (3/14/13), which indicated that
he was in good form at this section's relatively quick time control.
As the top seed, he
faced former US Junior Congress champion Advait Budaraju in the last round.
Experimenting with the Scotch, Joaquin won an exchange and got a decisive
lead on the clock in this game.
6725
Bay Area Chess won
their third team title after overcoming a strong challenge from Berkeley Chess.
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. NorCal won their third team title.
IM Emory Tate conducts free analysis of games
Edward Li won the individual championship and Marin
Scholastic won the team championship in the 20 & under Blitz section. Dante Peterson, Hans Niemann, and Max
Schlosberg tied for 11 & under blitz and ASA Chess won the team section.
Chess Mom Delia Sabau rules
Salman Azhar, Michele Doan, and
Justin Easterday organized the event. Tom Langland, John McCumiskey, Richard
Koepcke, Scott Mason, Jordan Langland, and others directed the event. The event
is sponsored by BayAreaChess
and CalChess. Please find the final
individual standings here,
team standings here,
and rating report here. You can
also find pictures of the events by Azleena Azhar, Salman Azhar, and
Salman Azhar ay Day 2.
Kele Perkins also contributed to this report
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