Coach Joe Lonsdale’s report on the 2017 Calchess Grade Level Championship
Over 400 scholastic chess players competed in the Northern CA Grade level chess Championships at the Santa Clara Convention Center the weekend of December 3rd and 4th. MSJE was the big winner in the Elementary School Section. MSJE won Grades one, two, five, and six and took third place in grade 4.
In grade one there were only two players, Arthan Pawar and Arnam Pawar of MSJE, with perfect 4-0 scores after four rounds. Arthan and Arnam played each other in the last round. Arthan won to take first place with a perfect 5-0 score. Aditya Arulta, also of MSJE finished with four wins and one draw to take third place. The MSJE team took the first place team trophy with 13.5 points to 10.5 for the second place team, Basis Fremont Independent. Swagatha Selvan , Ruthvik Arumalla, Ranga Ramanujam, Prisha Agarwal, Ashwin Jegan, Keerthana Gudi, and Sunay Rao also competed for the MSJE grade one team.
In grade two Kavya Meiyappan scored 4 points and tiwd for 3rd place. Jason Liu and Jaidev Kaleesawaran each scored three wins and one draw and tied for 10th place. Allen Yang, Zahaan Kassamail, Thomas Zhang, Edward Zeng, Krish Harwani, and Dhruv Sheth also competed for the MSJE grade two team which won the first place trophy with 10.5 points to 8 points for second place Weibel.
Jolene Liu scored three wins and a draw to tie for 16th place in grade 4. Ayaan Kassamali and Siddharth Arulta each scored three wins. Ardarsh Swamuy, Vividh Goenka, and Nityasri Kolta Also competed for the MSJE 4ht grade team wich won the third-place team trophy.
In grade 5 allyson Wong lost her first game then went on to win her next five games to take tie for second place. Aghilan Nachiappan won four games losing to only the top two rated players in the section. Arna Linginnagari aslo won four games and tied for 6th place. Viabhav Wudaru Aditya Sujay and Saidvy Tunguturu also competed for the MSJE grade 5 team which won the first place team trophy.
In grade 6 Kevin Pan won all six of his games to take the first place individual trophy. Stephen He took the second place trophy with four wins and one draw. Aidan Chen tied for 11th with three wins and a draw. Nivedha Maniv and Maurya Armulla also competed for the MSJE grade six team that took thei first place team trophy.
Congratulations to the chess team for a great showing at the Grade Level Championships.
Coaches: Joe Lonsdale, Chris Torres, Meiyaps Sathappan, Terry and Cath Liu, Hui Wang, Nachi Nachiappan