Los Gatos students star at chess championships
By Emilie Doolittle
Los Gatos Weekly-Times
Article Launched: 06/03/2008 03:09:16 PM PDT
About 20 students from Los Gatos were among 1,000 competitors in the Northern California Scholastic Chess Championships at the San Jose Convention Center, May 17 and 18.
Steven Zierk, a freshman at Los Gatos High School, topped a 68-player field to become Northern California high school co-champion with Jeff Young, a junior at Saratoga High School. The two will play each other to determine who will represent Northern California at this year’s national tournament.
Fisher Middle School’s team finished second of 11 teams in the junior high section. The team included David Frankle, who tied for second place, Shreyas Kulkarni, Alex Beale, David Zhang and Kiarash Mavandad.
Blossom Hill Elementary School’s team placed 10th of 18 teams in the elementary novice section. The team included Ian Gordon, who won an individual trophy, Nitin Srinivasan, Alex Feghhi and William Wilson.
Three Blossom Hill students took honors in other sections. Jonathan Gilbert placed 19th out of 64 players in the K-5 championship, Ritaank Tiwari placed third out of 52 players in the K-3 junior varsity and Vedaank Tiwari tied for 19th out of 115 players in the elementary junior varsity.
Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/
That’s a big scholastic event. Is that normal?
The turnout was pretty small this year due to the late date. Northern California typically draws about 1200-1300 players, on par with one of the USCF Nationals. The tournament is incredibly difficult to pull off from an organizational point of view.
Michael Aigner
Can one view any photos of this tournament?