Chess4Life

Stevenson Elementary Trimuphs Again at 2008 National Elementary Chess Championships

Stevenson chess team did it again, for the third time, bringing home team and individual trophies from the National Burt Lerner Elementary (K-6) Chess Championship.  This year, the Elementary National Championship was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from May 9-11. The Stevenson Elementary School from Bellevue, Washington won the 1st place team title in K-3 Championship section, 1^st place team trophy in K-5 U900 section, 10^th place team title in the K-5 Championship section. Last year, the Stevenson team clinched 1^st team trophies in K-3 U800 and K-5 U900 sections and 5^th place team title in the K-5 Championship. In 2005, Stevenson won the National Team title in the K-5 Championship section.

This annual event, organized by the United States Chess Federation, brings together the best scholastic chess players from around the country to compete in 9 sections. This year over 2,200 students from 45 states participated.

Stevenson Elementary fielded a total of 3 teams and 17 of its best chess players. The K-3 Championship team of Daniel Hua, Patrick Wang, Amith Vanmane, Kevin Ma, Nathan Chou and Stephen Embry won the National Champion Team title in the 209-player section impressively with 21 points. The team score is computed based on the top four individual scores. Several team members won individual trophies, including Daniel Hua (7^th place), Patrick Wang (11^th place), Amith Vanmane (25^th place) and Nathan Chou (1^st place among U600). Nathan also won the Biggest Upset award by defeating a player rated more than 800 points higher.

The K-5 U900 team topped the 406-player section in convincing fashion with a score of 24 points. All four team members won individual trophies each with a score of 6 points. They are Kevin Qiu (9^th place), Grace Sun (10^th place), Eric Chen (12^th place) and Allen Yuan (14^th place).

The K-5 Championship team of Jiayi Hu, Brandon Wang, Brian Yu and Robert Zhang scored 15.5 points in the 288-player section. Individual class trophy winners include Jiayi Hu(1^st place among U1200), Brandon Wang(1^st place among U1000), and Brian Yu(2^nd place among U1000).

Other individual trophy winners include Leanne Hwa (2^nd place) in the K-6 Unrated section who had an almost perfect score of 6.5 and Nikolai Warner (10^th place) in the K-3 Unrated section.

The following players also participated in side events. In the Bughouse tournament, Allen Yuan teamed with Jack Go from Eastside Christian School and won 5^th place out of 54 teams. Leanne Hwa and Grace Sun won the 7^th place. Eric Chen and Kevin Qiu won 25^th place. In the Blitz K-6 tournament, Eric Chen, Grace Sun, Leanne Hwa and Allen Yuan won 11th place team trophy and Grace also won individual 3^rd place among U800.

Nationals Team Members:

K-3 Championship Team

1^st Place Team Winners                               

Daniel Hua                  3^rd Grade

Patrick Wang              3^rd Grade

Amith Vanmane          3^rd Grade

Kevin Ma                    2^nd Grade

Nathan Chou               3^rd Grade

Stephen Embry           3^rd Grade

K-5 Under 900 Team

1^st Place Team Winners                               

Kevin Qiu                   4^th Grade

Grace Sun                   4^th Grade

Eric Chen                    4^th Grade

Allen Yuan                  5^th Grade

K-5 Championship Team

10^th Place Team Winners

Jiayi Hu                       4^th Grade

Brandon Wang            5^th Grade

Brian Yu                     5^th Grade

Robert Zhang             5^th Grade

K-6 Unrated

Leanne Hwa                5^th Grade

K-3 Unrated

Nikolai Warner            3^rd Grade

K-1 Championship

Kumho Chun              1^st Grade

Stevenson Chess Club Coaches:

Stevenson Chess Club is coached by Elliott Neff, Matt Fleury, David Hendricks and Gregg Dillingham. This year's team to Nationals is led by coaches Elliott Neff, David Hendricks and Harlan Lee.

Elliott Neff, a self-taught chess master, has been the head coach for the past 5 years.  He is the founder of Chess4Life Center and Clarus Academy in Bellevue.

Matt Fleury has been a coach at Stevenson for 5 years. He was the winner of Washington State Premier in 2005.

David Hendricks has been a coach at Stevenson for 6 years.  He is currently the scholastic director of the Washington Chess Federation.

Gregg Dillingham has been a coach at Stevenson for 3 years.

Stevenson Chess Club

Stevenson Elementary School

Bellevue, Washington

The Stevenson Chess Club is in its 6^th full year as an after-school club activity at Stevenson Elementary in Bellevue, Washington.  The Club has 86 members from 1^st through 5^th grades.  The Club is run by parent volunteers.

Stevenson Elementary is a K-5 school in the Bellevue School District, located in the heart of Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle.  The school enrolls 582 students.  It has a widely diverse student population, with the following demographics: 22% white; 7% African-American; 41% Asian; 20% Hispanic; 9% multi-ethnic.  58% of the students speak a first language other than English. 35% qualify for free- and reduced-price lunches. The school includes both a neighborhood program and a magnet program for gifted students. The goal of our club is to promote scholastic chess to as many students as possible.  The Club includes students from the entire school. The principals at the school are Brenda Naish and Christy Lindquist.  (425) 456-6000.  www.bsd405.org/stevenson/

Contact Person: Uma Vanmane, club coordinator, (425) 653-3433

Photos are at http://share.sameageinside.com/Lists/Photos/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2FLists%2FPhotos%2F2008%20National%20Burt%20Lerner%20Elementary%20Championship

GM Hikaru Nakamura Simul at WA State Elementary Championship

Hello chess enthusiasts,

The WA State Elementary Chess Championships this year was huge.  With record numbers of over 1500 players, it was certainly the biggest WA State Championships yet.  And next year will only be bigger.

A big thanks go to Chess Enrichment Association for putting on the event this year.

One of the biggest attractions at State this year was the simultaneous chess exhibition performed by former US Chess Champion Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.  Nakamura took on 20 players at the same time of all skill levels.

Nakamura Simul at State - VIDEO

The event began with mostly younger, student players, but as Nakamura played on undefeated, some of the best adult chess players in the state sat down and challenged him.  After hours of simul play (which can be taxing on even the most seasoned chess master) Nakamura emerged victorious in every game he played.

WA State vs British Columbia Intermat Report and Photos

The 17th edition of this annual scholastic match, held at the New Westminster campus of Sprott-Shaw College on April 19th, resulted in a decisive 32-20 victory for the home team. Previously held the first weekend in December, this year the match was moved to the spring to provide better driving conditions - naturally, this coincided with late snowfalls on both sides of the border, but transportation was unaffected.  In previous years the match was contested by two players from grades 1-12 on each side, but this year kindergarten students were added, bringing the total on each side to twenty-six. Traditionally Washington has scored heavily in the lower grades in these matches, whereas B.C. tends to do better in the upper grades; the match is thus determined by which team can do better in their respective area of strength, or improve in their area of weakness. The visiting squad was hampered by a date conflict - a number of Washington's top juniors were playing in a national high-school competition in Texas and were thus unavailable for the match. Also unfortunate was a lack of communication, resulting in Washington not being aware that players could represent a higher grade until the last minute, by which point it was too late to make use of a substitute for one of their grade twelve players.

Despite these problems the Washington team held their own for much of the first round (5.5-5.5, then 8.5-8.5) but the superiority of the B.C. upper grades gradually made itself felt toward the end of the session, leaving B.C. with a comfortable 15-11 lead at the half. Despite playing black in the second session B.C. increased its lead, winning the second round 17-9 for an overall twelve-point victory.  The traditional areas of strength for each team are still evident: Washington won the kindergarten to grade 2 duels by a 2-10 score, but apart from a 2-2 draw in grade 4 B.C. won every other grade.

Especially significant was the score for grades 6-12: 19.5-4.5 in B.C.'s favour. In terms of individual results, B.C. players who won both their games were Donovan Zhao (grade 5), Tanraj Sohal (6), Foster Tom (8), Richard Huang (9), Elliot Raymer (10), Noam Davies (11), and Bindi Cheng and Jingzhou Lai (both 12); others with a plus score were Janak Awatramani (3), Jacob Jensen (4), Frank Cheng (5), Yifei Han and Jack Cheng (both 7), Yiming Han (9), and Tedging Pan (11). On the Washington side, Benjamin Brusniak and Nicholas Lumiere swept their grade one opponents. Others on the Washington team with perfect scores were Allistair Yu (kindergarten) and Kevin Ma (2), while Ethan Bashkansky (4) also had a plus score.

Many thanks to organizers Elliot Neff (Washington) and Ken Jensen and Glen Lee (B.C.) (especially for the sumptuous lunch spread), and to all the players for participating. The TD was Stephen Wright. Washington now holds a slim 9-8 lead in the overall series.

Year - Location - Victor

1991 - White Rock - BC

1992 - Mountlake Terrace - WA

1993 - Burnaby - WA

1994 - Mountlake Terrace - BC

1995 - Burnaby - WA

1996 - Shorewood - WA

1997 - Burnaby - BC

1998 - Shorewood - BC

1999 - Burnaby - WA

2000 - Seattle - WA

2001 - Burnaby - BC

2002 - Seattle - WA

2003 - Burnaby - WA

2004 - Seattle - BC

2005 - Burnaby - BC

2006 - Bellevue - WA

2008 - New Westminster - BC

Top 10 Players Each Grade in WA State

Below is a list of the top ten players from grades K-12 in WA State:

Kindergarten

• Allistair Yu
• Zhemin Shao
• Harrison Keyser
• Julian Sanders
• William Min
• Akshay Bablani
• Jeffrey Yan
• Dave Dearth
• Braxton Casey

Grade 1

• Roland Feng
• William Lee
• Nicholas Lumiere
• Benjamin Brusniak
• Justin Blachman
• Emanuel Chang
• Toshihiro Nagase
• Hunter Ufford
• Ben Seran
• Triston Ploch

Grade 2

• Chandler Moy
• Nathaniel Yee
• Kevin Ma
• Joshua Behar
• Noah Fields
• Andrew Osborn
• Kanish Puri
• Ryan Park
• Eric Liu
• Zuberi Wilson

Grade 3

• Trevor Johnson
• Patrick Wang
• Justin Yu
• Amith Vanmane
• David Lindgren
• Daniel He
• Spencer Lehmann
• Christopher Dierkes
• Samuel He
• Jack Go

Grade 4

• Ethan Bashkansky
• Samuel Meisner
• Miles Jackson
• Quentin Chi
• Wesley Yu
• Diallo Wilson
• Freddy Davis
• Giebien Na
• Zamir Birnbach
• Timothy Goei

Grade 5

• Casey Xing
• Nicholas Orlov
• Peter Lu
• Nicolo Gelb
• Yun eng
• Brian Hong
• Ian Mcpherson
• Matthew Song
• James Colasurdo
• Kate Tokareva

Grade 6

• Michael Wang
• Nathan Lee
• Megan Lee
• Alec Ho
• Bryan Yue
• William Li
• Crystal Liu
• Sarah May
• Samir Sen
• Peter Marriott

Grade 7

• Matthew Yang
• Daniel Ho
• Etai Liokumovich
• Michael Omori
• Frank Qu
• David Inglis
• Benjamin Chin
• Caleb Chuck
• Darren Hou
• Tate Maider

Grade 8

• Michael Lee
• Howard Chen
• Alex Guo
• Darren Wu
• Igor Ummel
• Zachary Countryman
• Sebastian Baker
• Alex Chow
• Jerry Li
• Ethan Gottlieb

Grade 9

• Devon Manber
• Peter Lessler
• Dakota Dixon
• Kamran Hughes
• Travis Bleich
• Vikram Kudva
• Thomas Witecki
• Albert Hong
• Blake Rassilyer
• Taylor Coles

Grade 10

• George Fan
• Kyle Rieb
• kerry Xing
• Niles Desmarais
• Cyrus Desmarais
• Ryan Ackerman
• Jacob Roberts
• Adam Shankland
• Zachary Wener-Fligner
• Alex Emerman

Grade 11

• Andy May
• peter Watts
• Michael Cambareri
• Krishnan Warrier
• Ryan Putman
• Sterling Dietz
• Garrett Morkill
• Frank Wessbecher
• Scott Charleston
• Eliot Knudsen

Grade 12

• Ricky Selzler
• Meir Lakhovsky
• Matthew Wilson
• Sterling Kolde
• Jamie Mulligan
• Alex Glass
• Bo Cao
• Yang He
• Alan Hsieh
• Justin Yan

USCF Rated Tournaments

Why USCF Rated Friday Night Swiss - NM Elliott Neff      

When I was just 11 years old, my Dad made a HUGE commitment to support me in chess - he would drive me and my brothers from Lynden, WA (right by the Canadian border), all the way down to the Seattle Chess Club! This was nearly 2 hours one way, and my Dad made the drive once a week for the "Friday Night Swiss" chess tournaments.

This was great competition at G/90 time control, and I believe that it was one of the main reasons I was able to go from unrated to Class A in just a few years of USCF competition! I would study hard during the week, and then make the drive in order to put into practice what had been learned.

I wrote down every single game I played in these thrilling tournaments (and still have all the scoresheets today!), and learned from them by analyzing those games with other people including the opponents that I played.

Because this made such a difference in my life (Thank-you Dad!!), we at Chess4Life are now offering this same opportunity to other young chess players by providing the same format of G/90, USCF rated games every Friday (except for some holiday weekends) at the Chess4Life Center and Clarus Academy. These Friday Night Monthly Swiss chess tournaments are open to Kindergarten-12th grade, as well as parents of a participating student and chess coaches (who are willing to stick around a bit later to go over games with the younger players).

Useful Advice on Plateauing in Playing Strength

Advice to a 9-yr old student and his Dad:

This last week I received a phone call from a pleasant Dad, seeking some advice for his son who is 9 yrs old and already rated over 1400. This young chess player has done very well already, but has been ‘plateauing’ lately – a common occurrence in improving chess players’ careers –but one that can be quite challenging to overcome if one doesn’t understand what to do. He’s been struggling to improve, and even sometimes goes backwards in rating. I was very happy to share some thoughts on how to ‘break through’ this period, and thought that perhaps some others would be able to benefit from these suggestions. (Do please let me know if you find this info helpful.)

1.       It’s important to understand that it is ‘normal’ for an improving player to ‘plateau’ and sometimes go backwards. The ‘curve’ of increasing rating vs. study is not usually a straight line, but instead a series of ‘jumps’ and ‘plateaus’ that sometimes even dip a bit – each jump representing a ‘breakthrough’ in grasping some more concepts and being able to implement them. It is VERY important to simply continue putting in the CONSISTENT study habit to ‘break through’!

2.       I recommend for serious chess players to put in 4-5 days a week, a minimum of 30 minutes per day of study (not counting practice/play time). Of this time, I recommend a player to spend 25% of the time on solving tactics/puzzles (to increase speed of seeing good opportunities), 25% on expanding knowledge of the endgame (usually the weakest area of developing chess players), and the other 50% primarily on books/software that develop middlegame understanding/planning, mixed in with some opening study (see below on opening study).

3.       It is MOST important, in my opinion, that students do NOT just ‘memorize’ opening patterns and moves. Instead, I highly recommend that a student study the opening by FIRST playing serious games (at least 30 minutes/side) and AFTER the games reviewing the opening moves to learn what should have been done instead. The reason for doing this is to make sure that the student is UNDERSTANDING ‘Why’ certain moves are played and what the PLANS are for the opening. Doing this will greatly assist young players in being confident in the opening and especially the middlegame as they will understand what the real strategy in a position is. I personally spent very little time on learning openings, beyond what I just mentioned, until I was playing over the 1700 rating level.

4.       For this particular student, it turned out that he is quite solid at tactics, but very weak when it comes to planning, and also has some trouble finishing off winning positions. I recommended the following study tools to help in this case:

a.       Silman’s Complete Endgame Course – great book that is divided by rating level into what is important to understand – for all levels from beginner to advanced master

b.      Mednis’ “Practical Rook Endings” and “Practical Bishop Endings” because they very clearly and concisely give the Principles of endgame play, rather than just many individual positions.

c.       CT-Art 3.0 and “Total Chess Training” software package for tactics and middlegame studies on software.

d.      How to Reassess Your Chess by Silman – a book that is very good for understanding how to create a plan in any situation – how to ‘break down’ a position into it’s positional elements, and then combine these into formulating a good plan. Somewhat ‘idealistic’ in its approach, but VERY good for helping a student start thinking along the right lines for creating good plans.

e.      Fritz (software) to help analyze the games played and find tactical opportunities that were missed.

f.        For later on, I recommended the Lev Alburt books, “King in Jeopardy” for learning how to build strong attacks against the king, and several others in the Comprehensive Chess Course series by Alburt…I’ve found most of these books to be very useful, especially for this level of 1200-1700+

Finally – I have found it to be MOST effective to study regularly, play serious games as a ‘test’ to implement and try out what is being learned, and then be sure to use these games to analyze very carefully and learn from them.

Washington State Blitz Championships

The WCF-sanctioned WA State Blitz Championships (5 minutes per side for the whole game!) was held on July 21, 2007. Thanks to the efforts of Dan Matthews and Eddie Chang, the site was secured for this event at one of the most popular places to place chess in Bellevue...Crossroads Mall in Bellevue where there is a 'giant' wooden chess set in the mall and chessplayers playing at all hours when the mall is open! The tournament was planned to have mostly pre-registration, and with just 35 players pre-registered on Friday, we decided to combine both the scholastic and open categories into one section; however, by noon on Saturday, there were 66 players present! The mall scrambled to provide a few extra tables, and the first round started shortly after 12:30pm. The format was a 7 round Swiss with each player playing two games with every opponent, one white and one black. The field was very competitive, with the WA State Champion Ignacio Peres there, trying to add the title of WA State Blitz Champion to his strong performances this year... Other strong players included FM John Readey, NM Nat Koons, FM David Roper, Ricky Selzler, Josh Sinanan (rated over 2700 on the Internet Chess Club!), Bruce Kovalsky, etc, etc...there was even a contingency from Bellingham that came in for the challenge!

When 4pm rolled around and scores were tallied - the surprise winner - Ricky Selzler, earning both the WA State Junior Blitz Champion (under age 21) and the WA State Blitz Champion titles with a VERY impressive score of 12.5/14, 3 points ahead of 2nd place! There was some very exciting chess played that afternoon - players enjoyed the opportunity to stroll down to the food court when hungry - and quite a number of scholastic players had a good time, some for the first time competing in a Blitz tournament!

2nd-4th was shared by Josh Sinanan, Ignacio Peres, and Denis Janky with 9.5/14. In the scholastic section, Bob Alger, 12th grade, proved that his nerves were stronger than the rest by his strong finish of 11.5/14, closely followed by Jaan Budzianowski with 10.5/14 and Darren Hou with 10/14...tied for 4th were Daniel Hua and Wesley Yu with 9.5 each. Special congratulations to kindergartner Benjamin Yee for scoring 6.0/14!!

With cash prizes in the open category, trophies in the scholastic category, and $100 in gift certificates donated by Uncle's Games, this was a very enjoyable event. Thanks to the players' assistance in following the requirements of the facility, keeping the tablecloths neat, keeping the fire lanes clear, etc, Crossroads Mall would like to invite the Blitz Championships back for next year if possible! A very big thank-you to Michael Cohn for managing much of the registration and pairings while I was busy competing. Chess4Life was pleased to be able to help promote chess by hosting this event, providing online registration and tournament management.

Sincerely,

NM Elliott Neff

Gold Member Night Featuring Grandmaster Simul!

Hello chess players! 

This is a very special Chess4Life blog update!

On Tuesday, July 10th, Grandmaster Emil Anka, for a special exclusive event, played against more than twenty-five players in a simultaneous chess exhibition.

By the end of the simul, the grandmaster had managed to beat everyone, and the most anyone was able to do against him was achieve a draw!

Chess4Life was very glad to have Emil Anka here for camp, as well as for the simul he was good enough to play in.

See you all soon!

The Washington Home School Convention!

Hello Everyone!

It's the middle of Summer, and we hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful weather we've had these past few weeks!

Chess may be a game that's commonly played inside, but we're happy to say that the sun hasn't slowed down interest and excitement for chess!

Last weekend, the Washington Homeschool organization hosted their annual state homeschool convention for all homeschool parents to come and check out what's new in the homeschool environment and what sorts of new curriculums are offered. 

During the two days, hundreds of families came through the Puyallup Fair Grounds looking at the different homeschool curriculums that were being offered as well as visiting the dozens and dozens of vendor booths with everything from K-12 math text and work books to educational games and toys.

With all this going on, Chess4Life was there promoting our programs, along with two giant chess sets that recieved a great deal of attention and esteem from kids and parents alike.

The Giant Chess Sets were wildly popular at the Washington Homeschool Convention!

Aside from the very popular giant chess sets present, Chess4Life Founder Elliott Neff was available to do a 15-person simultaneous chess exhibition.

National Master Elliott Neff taking on all challengers in a 15-person simul!

The 2007 Washington Homeschool Convention was a great success, and Chess4Life was happy to be a part of it!  We look very forward to being there again next year!

Chess4Life and the Seattle Mariners

Hello chess players!

This is an announcement regarding Chess4Life's upcoming group outing to see the Seattle Mariners take on the San Diego Padres on Friday May 18th. 

The Chess4Life staff and coaches will all be attending, and we encourage all Chess4Life parents, students and friends to come along and enjoy the game with us!  it will be a great opportunity to see and interact with your coaches before the end of the year, and to make many more friends through chess in the process!

Tickets will be $10 plus a $1 online registration fee, and if you'd like to sit next to some of your friends specifically, please order tickets together...Chess4Life will be occupying three seating sections at the ballpark, and we'll all be able to sit together.

If you're interested, tickets can be ordered by e-mailing Chess4LifeGroup@SeattleMariners.com with the number of tickets you'd like to order.

If you prefer, you can order tickets through myself – if you do so, we will try to group the tickets so that friends are sitting together… (Either way, once we are at the game, I’m sure that people will be moving around a bit in the sections that are reserved for us.) Just send us $11/person, a list of names, and a contact phone #, and we will handle ordering for you!

Look forward to seeing you all there!