Home Page arrow Chess Life Online arrow 2015 arrow April arrow Baird and Mechanics Host 2nd San Francisco Scholastic
Baird and Mechanics Host 2nd San Francisco Scholastic Print E-mail
By GM Nick DeFirmian   
April 2, 2015
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The 2nd Annual San Francisco Scholastic Chess Championship was held March 28th at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. Mayor Ed Lee sent his deputy Joaquin Torres to welcome the 400 kids and parents who came for the event. "On behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to the 2015 San Francisco Scholastic Championship," wrote Mayor Lee.

The championship was free for all participants as it was sponsored by the financial firm Robert W. Baird & Co. It was organized by the Mechanics' Institute as the high point of the Mechanics' Youth Outreach Chess Program, which teaches chess for free in the San Francisco schools. This is San Francisco's version of the New York "Chess in the Schools" program.

The beautiful playing hall was decorated with colors for the different sections.  This was courtesy of the Baird events team, which also produced colorful t-shirts with a chess/SF skyline motif featuring the Golden Gate Bridge. Side events provided much entertainment. There was a courtyard simul by GM Daniel Naroditsky who played 35 players. (He defeated them all - a warm up for the US Championship.) GM Jesse Kraai gave an entertaining blindfold simul, Iris Kokish, a local women's class A player and coach gave a (mostly) all-girls simul, and chess clowns entertained the kids in downtime. A free lunch was graciously donated to all participants by Zoe's Meats.
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There were six sections: High School, Middle School, grades 4-5,grades  2-3, grades k-1, which were unrated sections and one rated section with first prize being an all expense paid trip to the Nationals (2nd and 3rd prize were free entry to the Mechanics' Summer Chess Camp). The tournament was 4 rounds.

Results:

Rated Section: 65 players
1st Jayson Shi  4 points , won blitz playoff
2nd Callaghan McCarty-Snead 4pts
3rd Aaron Thompson 4 pts
4rth Robert Reyes 3.5 pts
5th Adrian Kondakov 3.5 pts
6Easwar Srree Kurli 3.0 pts

High School Section 22 players
1st Jacky Kuang 4 pts.
2 Andy Kuei 3.5 pts
3 Christopher Natividad 3 pts
4 Elisa Huang 3 pts

First Place High School Team: Lowell High School
Second Place High School Team: Wallenberg High School

Middle School Section 24 players
1st Manas Manu 4.0 pts
2nd Marco Monfiglio 4.0 pts
3rd Aadi Sharma 3.0 pts
4rth Kathy Ly    3.0 pts

First Place Middle School Team: Francisco Middle School
Second Place Middle School Team: Kennedy Middle School

4rth-5th grade section  27 players
1st Cesar Morales 4.0 pts
2nd Gabrielle McMillan 3.5 pts.
3rd Steven Yu 3.0 pts
4th Satvik Namburu 3.0 pts

2nd-3rd grade section  32 players
1st Timur Magomedov 4.0 pts (won playoff)
2nd Makoto O'Donnell 4.0 pts
3rd Ryan Wolk 3.0 pts
4rth Mustafa Malik 3.0 pts

K-1st grade section 34 players
1st Ethan Jin 4.0 pts

2nd Lucas Wu 3.0 pts

3rd Ishani Krishnan 3.0 pts

4rth Jonathan Hwan 3.0 pts

First Place Elementary School Team: SF Pacific Academy

2nd Place Elementary School: Brandeis Hillell

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