MSJE Chess Team Again Wins Big at Nationals!

Coach Joe’s Report on the 2018 USCF National Elementary Chess Championships (Photos by Hui Wang):

On the weekend of May 11th to 13th more than 2200 Elementary school students competed in the National Elementary School Chess Championships in Nashville, TN. This was the tenth straight year that a strong group of Mission San Jose Elementary School (MSJE) chess players traveled from Fremont, California to attend these championships and once again they brought back an impressive collection of plaques and trophies.

The overall elementary school championship is the K-6 Championship section. MSJE has won this section three times in the last five years (2013, 2015, & 2016) and four times in the past nine years (also 2009). We decided to arrange our players to maximize the chances of winning this section again. This meant moving our two top fifth graders (Aghilan Nachiappan and Allyson Wong) into K-6.  This move left us without a full team in K-5, but our two second grade stars (Kavya Meiyappan and Jason Liu) agreed to move up and play in K-5 since we did not have a full team in K-3.  (Four players is a full team.  The team score is the sum of the scores of the top four players on the team.

This left us with a K-6 team with one super star and five very strong players and a K-5 team that had a reasonable shot at a top 10 finish.

We have had a great K-1 team and I fully expected them to finish in first. I was confident enough to mention this to Chuck Graves, the MSJE principal.  MSJE won K-1 in 2012 and this team was certainly stronger than our 2012 team.

As high as my expectations were for our K-1 team the team actually exceeded expectations.  They got off to a fast start and were never in any place but first.  There were 154 players in the K-1 section.  Only six players scored six or more points.  Our top three players Artham Pawar, Lucas Jiang, and Arnam Pawar all scored 6 out of seven.  Adirya Arutla scored 5/7, Sagwartha Selvan scored 3.5/7.  Sarvesh Maniv also competed for our K-1 team.  This team won by 4.5 points which is a gigantic margin. They could have not shown up for the seventh round and still won first place.

Our K-6 team was locked in a brutal battle with three powerhouse schools form New York all weekend. They went into the last round a half point behind Speyer and a half point ahead of Dalton. These are both perennial scholastic chess powerhouses.  Kevin Pan, our top player, with 5/6 was in a battle of the individual championship.  We gained a half point on Speyer, Dalton gained a half point on us and we ended up in a three-way tie for first place.  Kevin won his game and ended up in a tie for first place.

Our K-5 team of Kavya Meiyappan, (4/7) Ayan Kassamali, (3.5/7) Jason Liu (3/7) and Jolene Liu (2.5/7) tied for seventh place.  Zahaan Kassamali also competed in K-3 (4.5/7).

Congratulations to the chess team for a great result at the National Championships.

MSJE Chess Coaches: Joe Lonsdale, Meiyaps Sathappan, Terry and Cathy Liu, Hui Wang, Nachi Nachiappan, Chris Torres

Mission San Jose Elementary School Shines at the Calchess Scholastic Chess Championships

Coach Joe’ Report on the 2018 Calchess Scholastic State Championships (Photography by Hui Wang):

The 2018 Northern California Scholastic Chess Championships were held the weekend of April 7th & 8th at the Santa Clara convention center. Over 1200 students and more the 50 schools competed in these championships.  Mission San Jose Elementary school (MSJE) of Fremont was the big winner in the Elementary School Division. The MSJE Chess Team won two of the three major elementary school sections (K-3 & K-6) and Kevin Pan won the overall individual elementary school championship.

The top elementary school section at these championships is the K-6 Championship Division. Kevin Pan scored five wins in six rounds and took the first-place trophy. Other members of the MSJE team were Stephen He (4/6), Nicholas Jiang (4/6), Aidan Chen (3.5/6), and Nivedha Maniv (3/6). In the fourth round Aidan Chen won a critical game versus Weibel. This was the eighth straight year that MSJE has taken home the first place trophy in K-6.

The K-5 Championship section is the second highest elementary school section at the State Scholastic Chess Championships. This section was created in 2007 to give elementary schools without a grade 6 a fair chance to win a championship section. MSJE has won this section every year since it was created. Both MSJE and Weibel entered strong teams in the K5 Championship section. The MSJE team was led by Aghilan Nachiappan (5/6 2nd place) and Allyson Wong (4.5/6 8th place). The Weibel team scored 17 points and beat the MSJE team (16.5) by the smallest possible margin. Other top scorers on the MSJE K-5 team were Viabhav Wudaru (3.5/6 #19), Siddharth Arulta (3.5/6 #21) Arnav Lingannagari (3.5/6 #24), and Ayaan Kassamali (3.5/6 #27).  Jolene Liu, Saidivy Tunguturu, Aditya Sujay, Vividh Goenka, Mihit Puvvula, and Arna Gupta also competed for our K-5 team.

The K-3 Championship section is often called the primary school championship.  MSJE won the first-place team trophy in this section every year since 2008. In 2018 MSJE once again took home the first-place trophy in K-3 Championship.  Our K-3 team was led by first grader Lucas Jiang (4.5/6 #4), third grader Kayden jiang (4/6 #9) Jason Liu (3.5/6 #14) and Aditya Arulta (3.5/6 #19).  First graders Artham Pawar and Arnam Pawar also competed for our championship K-3 team.

MSJE also did very well in the other sections.  Isha Vanungare, Sarvesh Maniv, and Aditya Vanungare competed in the Kindergarten section and took home the third-place team trophy.  Neil Kumar, Prisha Agarwal, Pranav Rajit, Ranga Ramanujam, Edward Zeng, Dhritee Desia, Ashwin Jagan, Ruthvik Arumalla, SHreeya Hule, Shrihan Bolla, Kerrthana Gudi, and Aaditya Bisht competed in the K-3 beginner section.  Allen Yang, Swagatha Selvam, Pratyush Hule,  Ashwin Marimuthu, Zahaan Kassamali, Avkash Panwar, and Meghana Satish competed in the K-3 JV section.  Ardash Swamy, Nityasri Kolta, Maurya Arumalla and Pratyush Hule competed in the K-6 JV  section.

Congratulations to the Chess team for a great showing at the State championships.

Chess Coaches: Joe Lonsdale, Terry & Cathy Liu, Meiyaps Sathappan, Nachi Aghilan, and Chris Torres

Chris Torres’ Chess Résumé

Chris Torres teaching chess (summer 2017)

 

Chris Torres (209) 323-0197 chesslessons@aol.com · chessmusings.wordpress.com

Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California.

Experience

1998 – 2000 Chess Coach, Weibel Elementary School During his first year as a chess coach, Chris Torres helped Weibel to win the state championship and also coached his first state champion student.

2000 – 2005 Director of Instruction/Vice President, Success Chess Schools At Success Chess, Chris Torres designed curriculum for all levels of chess players, trained over 50 instructors, established programs at 60 Bay Area schools. Chris established a strong coaching reputation by training several individual state champions each year.

2005 – Present President, Torres Chess and Music Academy Through the Torres Chess and Music Academy, Chris Torres has brought world class instruction to California’s most talented young chess minds. Some of his accomplishments included running a “Chess Study” with the Kern County Superintendent of the Schools and U.C. Berkeley from 2006-2008. In addition to the study, Chris was able to educate the children in Kern County’s migrant farm worker community in chess and even coach them to prestigious Southern California regional chess titles. In the Bay Area, Chris was able to instruct several individual National Chess Champions as well as coach for the Mission San Jose Elementary School chess team, which in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018 took first place at the USCF National Elementary Chess Championship. Before 2009, no school from California had ever won the Elementary Championship section at the USCF Nationals.  In 2015 and 2016, the Torres Chess and Music Academy organized the Susan Polgar Foundation’s National Open for Girls and Boys which awarded over $100,000 in scholarships and prizes to the top youth chess players in the United States. In 2016, the Torres Chess and Music Academy accomplishments were officially recognized by FIDE (the world chess organization) and the TCAMA was awarded the title of FIDE Academy.

Chess Titles

2015 Correspondence Chess Master, United States Chess Federation

2015 Arena International Master, FIDE

Skills

·         Event Planning ·         Individualized Curriculum Development ·         Program Management

·         Tournament Game Analysis ·         Tournament Selection and Preparation ·         Using Chess as a Confidence Building Tool

MSJE Chess Team Wins Match Against All-Star Team from Berkeley Chess School

Coach Joe’s Report on the MSJE vs BCS Chess Match in Fremont

On January 20th, 26 members of the Mission San Jose Elementary School (MSJE) Chess Team played a match against an all-star chess team from Berkeley Chess School (BCS). BCS runs chess programs at more than 50 schools in the Bay Area. More than 20 schools were represented by their all-star team.

In a chess match (as opposed to a tournament) the top players from each team play on board one, the number two players play one board 2, etc. In this match each player played two games with the same opponent, switching colors after the first game. The format meant that most MSJE players were playing the top chess players from an opposing school. In addition to being at a disadvantage of one school playing 20 schools, MSJE was missing our top player Kevin Pan, due to illness.

Despite missing our top player, MSJE did very well on the top boards. Aghilan Nachaippan (board 1), Annapoorni Sathappan (board 2) (each team was allowed to play one or two 7th grade graduates) and Nicholas Jiang (board 3) each won their first and second games. On board four Allyson Wong contributed a draw and a win to give MSJE a 7.5 to 0.5 advantage on the top four boards.

After this first round the score was tied 13 to 13. MSJE won round two, 15 to 11 for a 28 to 24 victory.

Other MSJE players winning both their games were Lucas Jiang, Aditya Arulta, Swagatha Selvan, Aidan Ma, Arnam Pawar, and Advita Ranga Ramanujan.

Also competing for MSJE were Stephen He, Aidan Chen, Sai Divyesh Tunguturu. Jolene Liu, Nivedha Manic, Jason Liu, Vivdh Goenka, Artham Pawar, Jainlin Chen, Arnav Gupta, Meghana Satish, Dev Bhatt, and Dhruv Sheth.

MSJE Chess Coaches: Joe Lonsdale, Meiyaps Sathappan, Nachi Nachiappan, Terry and Cathy Liu, Chris Torres

MSJE Chess Team Shines at Calchess Grade Level Championship

Coach Joe Lonsdale’s report on the 2017 Calchess Grade Level Championship

MSJE Chess Team (photo by Hui Wang)

Over 400 scholastic chess players competed in the Northern CA Grade level chess Championships at the Santa Clara Convention Center the weekend of December 3rd and 4th. MSJE was the big winner in the Elementary School Section. MSJE won Grades one, two, five, and six and took third place in grade 4.
In grade one there were only two players, Arthan Pawar and Arnam Pawar of MSJE, with perfect 4-0 scores after four rounds. Arthan and Arnam played each other in the last round. Arthan won to take first place with a perfect 5-0 score. Aditya Arulta, also of MSJE finished with four wins and one draw to take third place. The MSJE team took the first place team trophy with 13.5 points to 10.5 for the second place team, Basis Fremont Independent. Swagatha Selvan , Ruthvik Arumalla, Ranga Ramanujam, Prisha Agarwal, Ashwin Jegan, Keerthana Gudi, and Sunay Rao also competed for the MSJE grade one team.
In grade two Kavya Meiyappan scored 4 points and tiwd for 3rd place. Jason Liu and Jaidev Kaleesawaran each scored three wins and one draw and tied for 10th place. Allen Yang, Zahaan Kassamail, Thomas Zhang, Edward Zeng, Krish Harwani, and Dhruv Sheth also competed for the MSJE grade two team which won the first place trophy with 10.5 points to 8 points for second place Weibel.
Jolene Liu scored three wins and a draw to tie for 16th place in grade 4. Ayaan Kassamali and Siddharth Arulta each scored three wins. Ardarsh Swamuy, Vividh Goenka, and Nityasri Kolta Also competed for the MSJE 4ht grade team wich won the third-place team trophy.
In grade 5 allyson Wong lost her first game then went on to win her next five games to take tie for second place. Aghilan Nachiappan won four games losing to only the top two rated players in the section. Arna Linginnagari aslo won four games and tied for 6th place. Viabhav Wudaru Aditya Sujay and Saidvy Tunguturu also competed for the MSJE grade 5 team which won the first place team trophy.
In grade 6 Kevin Pan won all six of his games to take the first place individual trophy. Stephen He took the second place trophy with four wins and one draw. Aidan Chen tied for 11th with three wins and a draw. Nivedha Maniv and Maurya Armulla also competed for the MSJE grade six team that took thei first place team trophy.
Congratulations to the chess team for a great showing at the Grade Level Championships.

Coaches: Joe Lonsdale, Chris Torres, Meiyaps Sathappan, Terry and Cath Liu, Hui Wang, Nachi Nachiappan

  

Fremont Summer Chess Camp 2016: Day 8

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Fremont Summer Chess Camp 2016: Day 6

Fremont Summer Chess Camp 2016: Day 5

Fremont Summer Chess Camp 2016: Day 4

The Fremont Summer Chess Camp  is now beginning our second week. Our camp runs Monday through Thursday until August fourth. More information and registration forms can be found on the Torres Chess and Music Academy website. 

Fremont Summer Chess Camp 2016: Day 3