Nov 2025 at John Green Elementary

180 players competed at the Tri-Valley Nov Open at John Green Elementary in Dublin, a co-presentation of Emerald Hills Chess, the Tri-Valley Chess League, and Emerald Knights Chess Club and part of our monthly tournament series. 

In our first-ever Championship (1200+) Quads, our section winners were:

Group 1 (1500+, $100 first): Teddy Usman

Group 2 (1500+, $100 first): Kadir Baki (Emerald Hills Chess coach)

Group 3 ($80 first): Ansh Shah

Group 4 ($80 first): Wilson Han

Group 5 ($80 first): Michael Wu

Group 6 (7 players, $140 total): Alexandru Chu and Ansh Doshi

In the 46-player Experts (U1200) youth/adult section, Aarav Ganesh and Ethan Ta tied for first place with perfect 4-0 scores, taking trophies and $75 each home. Naman Jain (Emerald HS) went an undefeated 3.5 out of 4 to place third.

There was a nine-way tie for fourth place at 3-1, in tiebreak order: Tong Hsieh-Lin, Kendall Poon, Joshua Cruz, Arham Shah (1st U1000), Mahat Aravind, Adhrit Goswami*, Derek Ko, Aryan Bhardwaj, and Varchasv Garg* (Fallon). Vetrival Jagath won 2nd place, U1000.

(* denotes one of the 300 students of our 15 tournament training classes and after-school clubs)

In the 48-player Premier (U800) section, there was a three-way tie for first place with perfect 4-0 scores: Nirbhay Rana, Sushen Anumanchipalli* (Hidden Hills) and Arush Doshi.

Ten players tied for 3rd place with strong 3-1 scores: Marvin Guo, Evan Li* (John Green), Vedant Rao* (Coyote Creek), Briyan Chen, Raghav Tiwari* (Mohr), Matthew Lau, Rishvik Paruchuri, Partha Chereddy*, Devarsh Nalam (1st U600), and Avyan Amritkar. Shauryveer Chaundkar placed 2nd Under 600.

In the 29-player K12 Challenger (U400), Akshara Manian and Oliver Lee* (Cottonwood Creek)  tied for first with perfect 4-0 scores. 

Four players tied for third with great 3-1 scores: Atharva Kudva*, Harshith Potnuru, Lynn Kim, and Abhiram Leburu* (Fallon). Dhruv Anandharaman* (Mohr) and Aadvik Nadiminti* took home the top U200/unrated trophies.

For the 28-player non-rated Novice round-robins, the trophy winners (min 3.5 out of 5 points) were:

Group 1: Kade Pascal, Alina Razdan* (Walnut Grove)

Group 2: Anagha Behara Venkata 

Group 3: Kiyan Chhabra, Noah Huang* 

Group 4: Nevaan Rana, Raghavachary Balaji and Shreelesh Khuperkar

Final Standings in prize tiebreak order (for Rated sections) and Tiebreakers explained

US Chess Federation-Rated results (NOT in prize tiebreak order) and Rating system explained 

(Note: Your ‘official’ rating is the number shown next to your name in the USCF rating database. These are updated once a month, and determine which section to enter in a tournament. To see your most current rating, click on your name in the database, then click again on ‘Tournaments-More’ in the top right of your player page.)

Thank Yous 

From lead organizers Emerald Hills Chess’s Eric Lai (Chief Tournament Director) and Bhavna Jain to:

• Assistant TD FIDE Master Advay Bansal and floor TDs Viren Sethi, David Kim, Shivish Aneja and Neil Mallu of co-organizer Emerald Knights Chess Club/Emerald HS.

• Floor TDs from our other co-organizer, Tri-Valley Chess League: Vatsal Srivastava, Shulin (Tiger) Lu, Saathvik Dharmapuram, Yichen Hu.

Coming Tournaments

Dec 13: Tri-Valley Open (San Ramon)

Take a break from finals prep and end-of-year work by joining our final tournament of the year! 

We will again feature Championship (1200+) Quads with an expected ~$700+ in cash prizes and 50+ trophies over five rated/unrated sections.

Jan 2-4: Cornerstone Academy Launch Tournament

Compete for a guaranteed $13,500 in cash prizes alongside a strong field of IMs and GMs in this USCF/FIDE-rated tournament in Sunnyvale. 

Seven different sections, including 1400-1599, 1200-1399, and U1200.   

The tournament is organized by East Bay-raised IM Josiah Stearman, who has kindly offered all friends of Emerald Hills Chess a 15 percent discount - use the code EMHILLS15. 

Register by December 15th to avoid late fee. Questions: jps.cornerstone.chess@gmail.com  

Spring 2026 Junior Training Classes & After-School Clubs

Join (or trial) one of our 15 classes and clubs in the Tri-Valley, including: 

• Tournament training classes for all levels on Sunday mornings, Wednesday evenings, and Thursdays after school (including our new GM-led high-performance (1300+) class)

• Fun, competitive afterschool clubs in Pleasanton, San Ramon and Dublin

• The FIDE-awarded, national champion Fallon Middle School club, now also open to Grade 4 and up tournament players in the Tri-Valley