Fremont Scholastic Chess Championship a Success

FremontChess.com held it’s annual Scholastic Chess Championship on March 16th and 17th at the Learning Bee Learning Center in Fremont, California.   Nearly fifty children participated in the event to share their passion for chess while competing for the title of Fremont Chess Champion.

The tournament which was a combined effort between US Chess Mates and the Torres Chess and Music Academy had an entry fee of only $20 thanks to the generous sponsorship of Grace Wong (Director of the Learning Bee Learning Center) and Joe Lonsdale (The Head Coach for Mission San Jose Elementary School Chess Team).

The K-1 section provided Fremont’s newest chess players a stage to show off their impressive skills on. And impress they did! Pranavi Pramod and Suhas Indukuri led the way with 3.5/4. Other players who performed admirably are Karanveer Singh Saran, Davin Lazar Vinod, Eayon Hsu and Emmett Zhao.

The largest and most competitive was grades 2-4. Joshua Huang won first place with 4.5/5 followed closely Dhruv Sheth with 4/5. From a tournament director’s standpoint, this group was a pleasure to watch. There was at least one interesting game to watch every round. It was wonderful to see so much up and coming talent.

The 5-8’th grade featured many excellent players but none played as well as eighth-grader Arjun Ganesan who achieved the only perfect score in the entire tournament. Second place went to Hemanth Kumar Merugu whose only loss was to Arjun. I have no doubt that all of the competitors in this section are destined for great things in Middle School, High School and beyond.

As the organizer for the Fremont Scholastic Chess Championship, I want to take one more moment to thank all the players, chess parents and sponsors for making this tournament possible. As a Fremont native, it was a special privilege for me to serve Fremont’s up and coming chess stars.

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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

Chris Torres: A Chess Coach, a Music Teacher, and an Advocate for Quality Education.

Chris Torres has been successfully managing and creating school chess programs for his entire adult life. His most recognized accomplishments include the co-founding of Success Chess Schools, the creation of the Torres Chess and Music Academy and consistently coaching the best young chess players in California for 15 years.

Chris found himself drawn into chess education in 1998 when

Chris Torres is California’s chess coach.

Dr. Alan Kirshner needed a replacement teacher for his famous Weibel Chess Club. Chris was an obvious choice beause he had been teaching Alan’s son classical guitar and often played chess with the Kirshners. Soon after joining a group of chess instructors at Weibel, Chris coached his first state champion student. Copying from the success of the Weibel Chess Club, Chris went on to establish State Champion chess programs at Argonaut Elementary School in Saratoga and the Harker School in San Jose. Shortly later, Alan Kirshner promoted Chris to Vice President of Success Chess and Chris turned all of his independently run programs over to the newly formed nonprofit.

As vice president of Success Chess, Chris Torres established chess programs and taught chess at schools all around the Bay Area. Many of the schools still have chess programs to this day. Some of these chess programs are at: Warm Springs Elementary School(Fremont), Leitch Elementary School(Fremont), Mission Valley Elementary School(Fremont), Ardenwood Elementary School(Fremont), Gomes Elementary School(Fremont), Blue Hills Elementary School(Cupertino), Collins Elementary School(Cupertino), Dilworth Elementary School(Cupertino), Muir Elementary School(Cupertino), Regnart Elementary School(Cupertino) Matsumoto Elementary School(San Jose), Meyerholz Elementary School(San Jose), Silver Oak Elementary School(San Jose), Covington Elementary School(Los Altos), Duveneck Elementary School(Palo Alto), Palo Verde Elementary School(Palo Alto), International School of the Peninsula(Palo Alto), Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School(Palo Alto),  Laurel Elementary School(Atherton), Las Lomitas Elementary School(Atherton), John Muir Elementary School(San Bruno), Crestmoor Elementary School(San Bruno), Dougherty Elementary School(Dublin) and quite a few other schools. During his time at Success Chess, Chris Torres also became a notable tournament director and a board member for Calchess. Through Success Chess, Chris Torres was able to achieve his goals of bringing scholastic chess to children all over the Bay Area.

After leaving Success Chess Schools in 2004, Chris Torres spent several months working for Richard Peterson of the Chess Education Association. After the school year concluded, Richard suggested to Chris that he set up his own organization and offered to sell all of the chess equipment from the CEA at a discount price. A couple months later, the Torres Chess and Music Academy was born.

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 alongside Joe Lonsdale, which in 2009 and 2013 took first place at the USCF Super Nationals Chess Championship. To date, no other elementary school from California has ever placed first in the Elementary Championship division of the USCF Super Nationals.

Acknowledged today as a pioneer in the field of chess and education, Chris Torres has been invited to speak at numerous educational forums and events. Aside from his reputation as a successful chess teacher, Chris is also known throughout the Silicon Valley as a top notch classical guitarist who still finds time to teach groups of youngsters the enjoyment of playing classical music.

CalChess Scholastic Chess Championships

For the last month I have been neglecting my blog in favor of focusing all my energy toward preparing chess students for the CalChess Scholastic State Chess Championships.  Everyone involved in Northern California chess regards the CalChess State Championships as the paramount scholastic chess tournament on the west coast. As a professional chess coach for the last 12 years, I have coached many of California’s best chess players and have been involved with the dominating Success Chess teams from many years back and for the last five years the even more dominant Torres Chess and Music Academy teams.  In fact, Torres Chess and Music Academy schools have placed first in 11 CalChess Championship sections during the last five years. With our teams taking nearly every first place trophy, Mission San Jose Elementary School has become the dynasty that other schools and coaches dream of defeating.  Because of the added focus on our chess players, I have decided to provide regular updates during the course of the 35th CalChess Scholastic Chess Championships. Please return to this blog as the tournament progresses to read my analysis of all the news and games from the 2010 CalChess Scholastic Chess Championships.

Where I Was Ten Years Ago.

Thanks to Google’s ten year  anniversary, the famed search engine has added an option to have a google search  show the user what he or she would have seen ten years in the past. This feature also includes the cached pages from a decade ago. Below is the description of my chess activities from ten years ago taken directly from http://mebers.aol.com/chesslessons I challenge the readers of this blog to cross reference the accomplishments of the Weibel and Argonaut chess programs. Also, be sure to check out http://google.com to see what the other notable chess personalities were up to “back in the day.” To see current information on my chess activities, please visit http://ChessandMusic.com 

Chris Torres in 1998!

 

Below is the description of my chess activities from ten years ago:

The Chess Coach

Teacher of Champions

I am Chris Torres, a scholastic chess coach who lives in San Jose California. I am the Supervisor of Instructors for Success Chess and also teach private lessons. Currently, I am the head coach for Warm Springs(Fremont), YoYo Chinese School (Fremont), and Challenger Schools(Pomeroy/Santa Clara, and Sunnyvale campuses), and a teacher at the prestigious Weibel Chess Club (Fremont). I also teach at Argonaut(Saratoga) and Gomes School (Fremont). My students have many success stories including both team and individual national and state championships. As a chess coach, I aspire to introduce children to the wonderful game as well as give them a taste of success. Students range from kindergartners to sixth graders. If you are interested in expanding a child’s logic, self-esteem, and creativity please email me at chesslessons@aol.com to find out the rates for private, semi-private, and group lessons.