March 14: 233-player East Bay Spring Open in San Ramon
233 players joined the East Bay Spring Open and Youth Championship at Iron Horse Middle School in San Ramon, a co-presentation of Emerald Hills Chess and the Tri-Valley Chess League, and part of our monthly tournament series.
Our 36-player Championship (1400+) was won by Teddy Usman* (Thurs night free chess) with a perfect 4-0 record, taking home $250.
(* denotes one of the 300 students of Emerald Hills Chess’s tourney training classes or chess club members.)
Steven Pachan *(Thurs night) tied for second with Vidyuth Harish at 3.5-0.5, each winning $125. Seven players tied for 4th at 3-1: Kadir Baki* (Emerald Hills coach), Shaahin Rushan* (Thurs night), Ansh Shah, Gloria She, Alexandru Chu, Tristan Ma, and Yuvan Nandhuakumar. Shah, She, Chu and Nandhakumar shared the U1500 cash, each winning $62.50.
In the 46-player Experts (1000-1399), Dhruv Jadhav and Owen Luo tied for first with undefeated 4.5-0.5 scores, each winning $125. Four players tied for 3rd at 4-1: Anay Shedge, Arjun Shenoy* (GM High-Performance class), Vinn Lao, and Adhvaith Viswajith, with Shedge, Lao and Viswajith each winning $50 (U1200).
Tied for 7th place at 3.5-1.5 were Prachet Kowlani, Dev Rawal, Aditya Ashwin* (Cottonwood), Brayden Li, Rishaan Nair, Xiaoxi Sha and Aryan Bhardwaj. Top U1200 players were Anvit Nadendla, Artemii Lebedev, and Anagha Gautham.
In the 65-player Premier (U1000) section, Liangchiu Huang went a perfect 5-0 to take first, followed by Namish Shrivastava* (Sunday tourney training) with 4.5/5.
Nine players tied for 3rd at 4-1: Abhishek Choudhury, Tong Hsieh-Lin* (Sunday), Griffin Hench, Ezra Mart, Adhvith Gautham, Vihaan Annam* (Sunday), Saketh Kollipara* (Fairlands), Evan Zhang, and Ayaan Karia* (Mohr).
Six players tied for 12th place with strong 3.5/5 scores: Vivaani Gogte* (Sunday), Rihaan Choudhury, Micah Toy* (Homeschoolers), Louis Liu, Bruce Chen, and Pranav Barani. Top U700 players were Vishnu Vandanapu, Varsha Vijay* (Thurs), and Krish Kaudinya.
In the 62-player K12 Challenger (U500), Leonardo Fernandez repeated his first place showing from last month, going a perfect 5-0. Paxton Wang and Neel Mehta* (Thurs tourney training) tied for second at 4.5-0.5.
There was a six-way tie for 4th at 4-1: Vihaan Sharma* (Thurs training), Siddharth Kandasamy, Jasper Huang, Proneil Chakrabarty, Kiyan Chhabra, and Jiaxuan He.
Tied for 10th place were Dhruv Anandharaman* (Mohr), Ved Dharmatti, Pranavi Abburi* (Sunday), and Andre Wu* (Thursday training). Top U300 were Viyaant Walia* (Live Oak), Rishaan Gupta* (Coyote Creek), and Katherine Yang.
In the 24-player non-rated Novices, Anay Murchite was first at 5-0, followed in second by Karan Kadaba* (Hearst) and Samyak Murchite at 4-1. Rounding out the top 9 were Sushrut Vempati, Jenny Sun, Yusuf Bseikri* (Homeschoolers), Vedaant Das, Titus Blatt* (Donlon), and Arjun Winston* (Hidden Hills). Top K-2 were Tarun Prabhu and Arjun Srinivas* (Walnut Grove).
Finally, we had 33 teams for the K-12 school and club team competition. The winners (top 3 scorers in each section) were:
Championship (1400+):
1st - Fallon Middle School* (Gloria She, Advaith Nadiminti*, Rayan Jain*)
2nd - John Green Elementary (Tristan Ma, Jason Sun)
3rd - Silicon Valley Chess Club (Pradyun Mekala, Srikar Yenamandra, Agastya Gannavarapu)
Experts (1000-1399):
1st - Berkeley Chess School (Anay Shedge, Adhvaith Viswajith, Brayden Li)
2nd - Summer Chess Club (Owen Luo, Xiaoxi Sha, Aiden Gao)
3rd - Fallon Middle School* (Arjun Shenoy*, Boya Wu, Krish Desai*/Adhvik Nuti*)
Premier U1000:
1st - Mission San Jose Elementary (Abhishek Choudhury, Adhvith Gautham, Rihaan Choudhury)
2nd - Piedmont Middle School (Liangchiu Huang, Griffin Hench, Adhish Prabu)
3rd - Summer Chess Club (Evan Zhang, Louis Liu, Ethan Yang)
Challenger (U500):
1st - Amador Elementary (Proneil Chakrabarty, Andre Wu, Arjun Sharma)
2nd - Summer Chess Club (Paxton Wang, Katherine Yang, and Forrest Cong)
3rd - Coyote Creek Elementary* (Rishaan Gupta, Krishav Mahesha, Dia Jadhav)
Novices
1st - Silicon Valley Chess Club (Anay and Samyak Murchite)
2nd - John Green Elementary (Jenny Sun and Parth Desai)
3rd - Hearst Elementary* (Karan and Meera Kadaba*)
Final Standings in tiebreak order and Tiebreakers explained
USCF-Rated results (not including Novices, and NOT in actual tiebreak order) and Rating system explained
(Note: See your current published rating at your player profile in the USCF rating database, which is used by tournaments for section placement. Click on Tournament History in the upper right to see your live rating, including results from the East Bay Open and other events within the last 30 days.)
Thank Yous
From lead organizers Emerald Hills Chess’s Eric Lai and Bhavna Jain to:
Chief Tournament Director Scott Mason
Floor TDs Anandharaman Pattabiraman* (Thurs nite chess), Saathvik Dharmapuram, Yichen Hu, Aditya Vuligonda, Karan Satish, Skand Bajpal, and Kastubh Chaudhury from the Tri-Valley Chess League, and Viren Sethi and Naman Jain from Emerald High School.
Major participating teams (and coaches) including: Summer Chess Club (Summer Gan), Berkeley Chess School (Stephen Shaughnessy), Mission San Jose Elementary (Zhipeng Li) and Silicon Valley Chess Club (Venkatagiri Acharya).
Tri-Valley April 25 Open (link coming soon)
We return to our regular half-day format, to be held at Donlon Elementary in Pleasanton. ~$800+ in cash prizes and 50+ individual trophies over 5 sections.
Other Recommended Tournaments
Sat April 4: Berkeley Chess School K-12 Quads (Pleasanton)
Sat April 11: San Francisco Scholastic Chess Championship