Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 Subject: fpawn's newsletter June 2008 Hello students, parents and friends! First of all, welcome to Kyle, Neel and DanielL to this email list. It was a pleasure seeing most of you at the CalChess Scholastics. The weekend was a blast, even if long and tiring. Since then, I spent a week at the Chicago Open (tied for 3rd place U2300 and won $925) and will be in Las Vegas for National Open next week. I am writing this email as a special newsletter. I suggest checking out my blog for the most current news about Northern California chess and my group of students and friends. Recent stories cover the CalChess Scholastics, my trip to the Chicago Open and Josh Friedel's brand new Grandmaster title. Bookmark this page now! http://fpawn.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. CalChess Scholastics 2. Two Students Set to Compete in National Invitationals 3. Tribute to High School Graduates 4. Chess teaching schedule 5. Summer plans 6. Play Tournaments 7. Summer Group Classes and Tournament 8. Bad News: Need to Cut Back on a Few Students ----------------------- 1. CalChess Scholastics ----------------------- I want to once again congratulate all of my students who performed well in San Jose. By the way, that includes the majority of you all! The average score for my 28 students was 4.04, including one 5.5, six 5.0s and three 4.5s. 23 students earned a trophy, including one 1st, two 2nds, two 3rds, one each 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 10th. I have four state champions this year, although three shared 1st place in the same section. Kudos to Steven (9-12), Danya (9-12), Jeff (9-12) and Yian (4-6) for a job well done! Excluding one foreign player, my students took the top three trophies in both the High School and Elementary (4-6) Varsity sections!!! HIGH SCHOOL 9-12 ---------------- Steven = 2nd place, co-CHAMPION -- will represent CalChess at Denker Tournament Danya = 3rd place, co-CHAMPION -- earns title for second year in a row Jeff = 4th place, co-CHAMPION -- only second player U2000 to tie for 1st since 1990 Alan = 7th place, tied for 5th Honorable mention: EvanS, Marvin, Nicholas, Charles, MichaelL, Aaron and David (all tied for 8th) *** SARATOGA HIGH SCHOOL repeated as 9-12 TEAM CHAMPION for 4th year in a row *** JUNIOR HIGH 7-8 --------------- Andrew = 5th place, tied for 3rd (sorry for forgetting you in the first email!) Sam = 6th place, tied for 6th Brian = 10th place, tied for 6th Honorable mention: Arthur, EvanY, Samyukta and KevinG (all tied for 11th) *** REDWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOL repeated at 7-8 TEAM CHAMPION *** ELEMENTARY 4-6 -------------- Yian = clear 1st place, CHAMPION Aamir = 2nd place, tied for 2nd James = 3rd place, tied for 2nd For more information, please check out my blog: http://fpawn.blogspot.com/2008/05/links-to-all-blog-posts-after-calchess.html --------------------------------------------------------- 2. Two Students Set to Compete in National Invitationals --------------------------------------------------------- Please join me in wishing GOOD LUCK to Gregory Young and Steven Zierk as they take on some of the best in the country at two USCF scholastic invitationals. Gregory will play in the US Cadet (U16) Championship on June 14-17 in Lindsborg, Kansas. He is not the highest rated player, but I think he can be one of three players to compete for the first place. http://fpawn.blogspot.com/2008/05/gregory-young-set-to-play-in-us-cadet.html As the winner of the High School division in the CalChess Scholastics, Steven will fly with me to Dallas, Texas for the Denker Tournament of High School Champions on August 2-5. This prestigious event typically attracts a few masters, so Steven will face a challenge. We'll both play in the US Open. http://fpawn.blogspot.com/2008/05/zierk-will-represent-calchess-at-denker.html ----------------------------------- 3. Tribute to High School Graduates ----------------------------------- Three of my present and past students are graduating from High School this year. This section is a small tribute to each of them. David Chock (2094) completed four years as the top board for Saratoga High School. Shortly after I started teaching him, David won an U2000 section in a Sacramento tournament with a 6-0 score, as the lowest rated player in the division, and set the record for the most rating points gained in a in a single tournament by a student of mine! However, his greatest moment of glory came at the 2006 National High School Championship when he nearly won the whole enchilada, even defeating top seeded IM Alex Lenderman on the stage. David's school won five straight state championships dating back to middle school and even won three top 5 team trophies at the USCF Nationals in the spring. In the past two years, he has helped mold the young players from Redwood Middle School into a strong team that has now won two state team titles itself. As a recognition for how long we worked together, David joins Daniel Schwarz as a lifetime emeritus student of mine. David will attend the University of California at Berkeley in the fall. Marvin Shu (1804) probably was better at math than chess, but he sure had fun playing the royal game. My first memory of Marvin came from a game in middle school where he checkmated a higher rated opponent with two bishops against two rooks (with even number of pawns). I also remember once when I was thinking of how best to scold him for playing on down a rook against a 1900 in a slow tournament, when several hours later he drew the game! I don't know if that's determination or just plain dumb luck. Marvin will attend my favorite school, Stanford University, in the fall. Kevin Hwa (1802) was never a star chess player but instead studied the game for its beauty. As a natural attacker and a disciple of the Shorman gambits, Kevin loved to play with fire on the board and occasionally even burned himself. After considering some east coast and midwest schools, Kevin finally decided to go to the University of California at Berkeley in the fall. Congratulations to all three graduates! -------------------------- 4. Chess teaching schedule -------------------------- As I mentioned in my email before heading off to Chicago, I am taking a break from teaching full time. I'm teaching one or two classes each day, generally to my top kids. Feel free to send me an email if you're not sure whether you have class or not. June 1- 3 = partial teaching schedule June 4- 9 = I will be in Las Vegas for National Open June 10-13 = partial teaching schedule June 14 = I will visit San Francisco for Stamer Memorial but will not play June 15 = partial teaching schedule June 16 = RESUME FULL SCHEDULE I apologize for any inconvenience, but this break gives me a chance to catch my breath and also focus a little on my improving own chess game. I figured that the time immediately after the CalChess Scholastics is ideal for a break. The latest schedule update is always available on my website: http://www.fpawn.com/chess/schedule.htm --------------- 5. Summer plans --------------- Please email me with your summer plans and any vacation dates that you will not have chess class. If you have not yet finalized your plans, that's OK; just email me when you know. I am also available to move around lesson time slots for the summer. If anyone wants their class in the early or mid afternoon on weekdays instead of later in the day, please let me know and we'll work something out. From past experience, at least a quarter of my students are out of town at any given time, thereby giving me greater flexibility. The really nice part of summer is the extra flexibility in my schedule. For example, if a small group of my students living near each other want to get together for a day at someone's house for a chess class plus some fun activities, let me know and I can try to make it happen. I have done this in past summers and it is always a lot of fun. ------------------- 6. Play Tournaments ------------------- I plan to attend most of the following tournaments this summer. I highly recommend to all of my California students to try to attend at least two of the major local events. No, I'm not expecting everyone to fly to Dallas, but San Francisco, Sacramento or even Agoura Hills (one hour north of LA) are more feasible. The right hand sidebar of my blog has a list of tournaments. Please remember that practice makes perfect. It does not take a genius to figure out that those who play more often do tend to improve more rapidly. I may also be able to supervise a small number of mature high school or middle school kids in Sacramento and Agoura Hills, provided that you have a ride to/from the tournament with someone else. Send me an email if you're interested. * June 6-8: National Open (Las Vegas) I will play in 3-day schedule http://www.vegaschessfestival.com/natlopen/ * June 14-15: Stamer Memorial (Mechanics) I will watch (but not play) on Saturday only http://www.chessclub.org/Stamer.html * July 4-6: Sacramento Chess Championship I will play in 3-day schedule http://sacramentochessclub.org/weekend_events/2008scc.pdf * July 18-20: Pacific Coast Open (Agoura Hills) I will play in 3-day or 4-day schedule http://www.chesstour.com/pco08.htm * August 2-3: Fremont Open I cannot play due to US Open http://www.calchess.org/controlpanel/files/FremontOpen08.pdf * August 2-10: US Open (Dallas) I will play in full 9-day schedule http://main.uschess.org/tournaments/2008/usopen/ * August 30-September 1: CalChess Labor Day (SF) I will play in 3-day schedule http://www.calchess.org/controlpanel/files/LABOR08.pdf In addition, you might be interested in the monthly 1-day tournaments that are popular around the Bay Area. There's at least a 50% chance that I will drop by the Mechanics' G/45 on June 21 (maybe even to play), but the other two G/45 events conflict with other tournaments. Mechanics' Institute G/45 events on June 21, July 19 and August 9 http://www.chessclub.org/Calendar.html Bay Area Championship (Santa Clara) on June 28, July 12, July 26 and August 23 http://www.bayareachess.com/events/allLevels.php Those of you who are planning ahead might want to circle the dates April 3-5, 2009. On these dates, a large delegation of players from Northern California will descend on Nashville, Tennessee for SUPERNATIONALS IV, which is a combination of all three major spring scholastic nationals. This event occurs only once every four years and is definitely worth experiencing once in your life. I expect about 6000 players. Stay tuned for more details. (Note: this is the first weekend of spring break for many Bay Area kids, meaning you only need 1 or 2 days off from school and don't have to worry about homework at the tournament.) -------------------------------------- 7. Summer Group Classes and Tournament -------------------------------------- In response to increasing demands on my time, I have launched a new concept of what amounts to a summer camp on ICC. For the first session from mid June through early July, I will teach advanced (1400-1800) classes on Monday evenings and intermediate classes (1000-1600) on Tuesday evenings. I am also planning a second session from late July through August. This is a bit of an experiment and I do not know how well it will work out. While these classes are intended for people who do not take private classes, some of my lower rated students may be interested as well. Please check out the following link to my blog if you are interested. http://fpawn.blogspot.com/2008/05/fpawn-chess-internet-chess-classes-and.html ------------------------------------------------ 8. Bad News: Need to Cut Back on a Few Students ------------------------------------------------ The unfortunate reality is that I am popular as a chess teacher. Other teachers have more turnover so that they can replace students who leave with newcomers. I lose only a very small number of students each year. However, I get quite a few requests from parents or even the kids themselves. Sadly, I have to turn most of them down. I will be writing to an unlucky few of you soon with some bad news. To make room for new students, I need to cut about five of my present students. The following groups of students are safe from my present cuts: * Saratoga High School and Redwood Middle School * students ranked in the top 50 or 60 in the nation on any age list * girls * students with lesson time on weekdays before 3pm To make my job a little easier, please let me know ASAP if you are thinking of quitting my chess classes either immediately or at the end of this summer (in August). One student has already left and another graduates from high school, but that still leaves me with at least 2-3 cuts to make. That's all for today folks! May all of your pawns promote. :-) Michael // fpawn