Feb 10th at Wells

Nearly 70 local K-12 players and parents competed for fun, glory and trophies at the fifth monthly, pre-Lunar New Year of the Dragon Tri-Valley Tourney.

The tournament was held by us and the Tri-Valley Chess League at Wells Middle School on Saturday Feb 10th.

The Challenger section attracted 18 (unrated under 300 rated) players competing in 6-player round robins. 

The trophy winners (min 3.5 out of 5) were:

Group A (Gr 6-12): Sebastian Karagozlu and Akshay Kumraguru, both of Fallon Middle School

Group B: Dublin Elementary’s Aarna Chokhani

Group C: Frederickson Elementary’s Lukshman Chandrasekaran and Hearst Elementary’s Aarav Bhatia

In the 20-player Premier section (U600 rating), Fallon’s Viren Sethi took first with a perfect 4-0 record. There was a three-way tie for second with great 3-1 scores: John Green Elementary’s Adhyan Banuri, Fallon’s Aparna Raj and Hart Middle School’s Krithave Vijaya Anand. Tied for fifth were Hart’s Risha Santosh Moholkar and Wells’ Mukundh Aravindh, while Top U400 went to Fallon’s Nolan Woo and newcomer Parth Bindal.

In the 20-player Championship (600-1400 rating), Amador Valley HS’s Jessica Jiang followed up her perfect 4-0 performance in the Premier last month by moving up and winning the Championship this month by a full point!

Three players tied for second at 3-1: Fallon’s Arhan Saha, Hart’s Aneesh Banerjee, and Fallon’s Arnav Solan.

Three players tied for fifth: Fallon’s Shivish Aneja and Fairland Elementary’s Arjunsai Navaneetha and Wells’ Mukhil Kannan. The top U800 players were Fallon’s Ishman Gogte and Kamaldheer Perumalla.

Finally, in our second adults-only tournament, Sreeraj Unni went a perfect 5-0 to take first (making it a double trophy day with his daughter Aparna Raj), while last month’s winner Prafulla Rawal took second place.

We plan to continue the free, unrated tournament and encourage all parents, whatever your level, to join in the fun and compete along with your child!

Full Standings: Challenger and Premier/Championship and Adults-Only

USCF rated results: Challenger and Premier/Championship 

Two notes:

1) Challenger games are aimed at novice tournament players and are ONLY quick-rated due to the fast time controls. Players looking to improve their Standard USCF rating and overall level of play should move up to the Premier or Championship sections.

2) New player ratings will both go up AND down dramatically. As players get more tournament games under their belt, their ratings become more stable and accurate. Here is an explainer.

Big Thank Yous! from the chief TDs and organizers (Emerald Hills’ Eric Lai and Bhavna Jain and TVCL’s Aryan Kumar and Aryan Achuthan) to:

1) Wells teacher and Wells Chess Club lead Sara Quintero and the Wells PFC for hosting us, in particular co-president Annie Torok

2) Our floor TDs: Tri-Valley Chess League members Nirav Jaiswal and Austen Yee and Wells Chess club head coaches Katherine Pask and Tharun Prem Anandh, both of Dublin HS.