72 local K-12 players competed at Stratford Middle School in Pleasanton for fun, glory and trophies.

The morning Challenger section attracted 24 unrated and novice (under 300 rated) players.

Top scorers in each 6-player round robin were:

Group A: Livermore High School’s Kadir Baki (5-0) and Fallon 8th grader Arnav Goyal (4-1)

Group B: Fallon 6th grader Danell Unardi (4.5-0.5)

Group C: Amador 1st grader Arastu Shrivastava (4.5-0.5) and Amador 2nd grader Tej Ruparel (4-1)

Group D: three-way tie with 4-1 records between Fallon 7th grader Krish Kathula, Fallon 6th grader Rohan Srimath Naidu and Harvest Park Middle School’s Ian Lam

In the 18-player afternoon Premier section (U600 rating), John Green Elementary 3rd-grader Mohan Ganapathi followed his older brother Eshan’s co-first in the Championship section last month to take first with a perfect 4-0 score. 

Tied for second through fifth with outstanding 3-1 scores were: Green Elementary’s Adhyan Banuri, Emerald High School’s Gautham Doddapaneni, Green Elementary’s Krish Desai, and Livermore High School’s Jordan Perez. Also winning trophies were Fallon’s Neil Mallu and Aparna Raj.

In the 20-player Championship (600-1200 rating), Dublin HS 11th grader Abhijoy Mukherjee scored a perfect 4-0 against very tough competition to take sole first, including defeating last month’s co-champion, Arjunsai Navaneetha Prabhu, in the last round. 

Prabhu took 2nd on tiebreak with a 3-1 score, followed by Dublin High School 9th grader Evan Lim, Fallon 8th-grader Aryaman Mujumder and Wells 8th grader Mukhil Kannan rounding out the top 5, also with strong 3-1 scores. Top U1000 scorers were Fallon’s Rayan Jain and Dylan Hoang and Dev Rawal, both from Wells.

See many more photos at our Facebook and Instagram posts.

There were many other strong performances that just missed out on trophies. 

Full standings for:

Nov Challenger 

Nov Premier and Championship 

USCF rating system explainer. Important note: 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.

Thanks to Stratford Middle School and their Pleasanton head of school Sanny Figueroa for hosting us! 

Thanks to Tri-Valley Chess League members that ran the morning tournament:  Aryan Kumar, Aryan Achuthan, Advay Bajpai, Gaurav Gupta, and Jaymin Byun.

Thanks to Dublin HS Chess Club head coach Rishi Jain for serving as Championship floor TD.

Overall tournament directors were Aryan Kumar, Aryan Achuthan, and Emerald Hills Chess’s Eric Lai, while organizers were TVCL’s Kumar, and Lai and Bhavna Jain of Emerald Hills Chess.

The next tournament in our affordable and convenient Tri-Valley series will be held in early December. Location and time will be announced soon.