January 29, 2023
2023 Winter Scholastic
(USCF report, CaissaChess Live Standings/Tiebreaks)
SDCC 2023 WINTER SCHOLASTIC overwhelmed with 115 players who played in 4 sections, 4 games of G30d5. The event went very smooth from 12 to 4:30 pm. This is by far our largest scholastic turnout since we reopened the scholastic tournaments in December of 2021. We have officially beaten our 2022 November Scholastic record of 114 players. In addition, we have beaten our record of no-shows, as we had NONE. All the kids were paired prior to coming in to the club that day using CaissaChess Live cloud based Tournament Directing software. All players received text notifications with their opponent's name, board number and color of pieces. It looked something like that:
When they came to the club around 11:45, they just needed to find their board number.
Special thanks to our volunteers: Jonathan Frye, Jason Nunez, Mario Amodeo, Chuck Ensey, David Saponara, Jim Harrell and Kathryn Mokhov. They took care of all the tiny details from cleaning the place, preparing the tables, getting all kids situated with boards and clocks, answering all questions kids and parents had, solving chess disputes, and many other things.
We were a bit worried about the weather and the rain but the weather turned out to be ok. The Open section played in the Skittles room while the U800/U500/U300 sections occupied the main tournament hall.
The Winners
In the OPEN K12 section, Ryuta Nunez took first place trophy with perfect 4 out of 4 result. Second best in the Open, Samarth Raghavan, finished with 3.5. Fausto Borquez, Francis Ordanza and Sebastian Burns came 3rd, 4th and 5th all with 3 points (based on tie breaks).
In U800 K12 section, Smaran Mukkavilli got first place trophy with perfect 4 out of 4 performance. Ayaan Oswal came second with 3.5. Raul Huseynli Borsella, Alan Chang and Nathan Trieu came 3rd, 4th and 5th based on tie breaks.
In U500 K7 section, James Whitwell, Saksham Kapoor and Alejandro Rodriguez finished with 3.5 out of 4 and got first, second and third place on tie breaks. Thomas Hamacher and Delby Sherod got 4th and 5th places with 3 points each based on tie breaks. U500 section really surprised us with games lasting much longer than any other section. For instance, the first round game between Evan Ngo and Nathaniel Lai went almost til the last minute with many spectators gathering around to watch the thrill of the endgame.
In U300 K5, our youngest beginner section, Nolan Liu was the top finisher with perfect 4 out of 4 score. Sashwat Raj Nirmal got second place trophy with 3.5 score. Sean Yong, Andrew Whitwell and Jonathan Whitwell got 3rd, 4th, 5th places with 3.0 score based on tie breaks.
Whitwell family did amazingly well in their very first USCF tournament. We hope to see them in our future events. In our scholastic tournaments we often meet new teams who come to play. On Sunday, the team of 10 players came from Gompers Preparatory Academy. One of their players, Alejandro Rordriguez, placed third in U500 K7. We also hope to see this team again in the future. Lycée Francais San Diego team brought an impressive number of players (16!) with two players placing into the trophies in U800 and U500 sections. LFSD chess team has been participating in our tournaments since we started our program in December 2021 and they come strong every time winning trophies and awards.
Please, stay tuned for our scholastic news as we are launching new events. The new format of scholastic is being planned for April and will be announced sometimes soon.
That's all for now,
Irina Nizmutdinova
Scholastic Lead
