Chess Palace Junior Open
December 20th, 2009

Pictures || Results || Upcoming || Rating Report

The satisfying attendance of 37 for the club's last tournament of the year was down thirty percent of its peak attendance two years ago, but a newly discovered strategy made it well worth it. The strategy is to bring out the female playing groups to compete along with the guys. It was accomplished by inviting a special guest to the tournament. The appearance of Woman International Master Tatev Abrahamyan at the event gave the girls an extra incentive to attend. It surely worked this time since close to half the total entry were young girls who came out to play. Abrahamyan simultaneously trained with as many as fifteen players who wished to arrive a full hour before the first round. In the past, female participation in open tournaments have been one or two per groups of fifty, so this event showed how a little motivation attracts beautiful talent. Another evidence of this was the participation of a 5 year old girl who played in her very first competition and she came all the way from San Diego! Even better was how the results showed the females' competitive level - one tied for third in the High School (Sakshi Walia), two tied for first in the Junior High (Rachel Hong) and Elementary section (April Simbana), and one clinched 1st place in the unrated Junior Varsity section (Isabella Vigil). Abrahamyan really made a positive female impression, thanks!

After six hours of back to back chess games, four players led their packs. Kendrick Nguyen pulled a draw with the top seeded expert and went undefeated for the rest of the tournament. Evan Cui of the Irvine Arts and Music Chess Club tied for first with Rachel Hong in the Junior High section. Their coach, Master Jim, wasn’t able to come to the event but called in to check how well his students were doing. In the K-3 section, a 2nd grader Carson Van Vooren scoring 2.5 of 4 points topped his group. Preston Williams, a senior at Whittier High School, won the Unrated section with Ramanjot Sandhu. Preston Williams credits his quick improvement to the strong players that he practiced with (ie his teacher and chess club advisor, Kele Perkins). In the Junior Varsity, Isabella Vigil of Rio Vista Elementary Chess Club won a convincing four points amongst even the merged Varsity section to win the gold.

Other winners include Fei Yue Yang who won 2nd, Nguyen Nguyen and Vincent Nguyen tied for 3rd in the High School section. Edward Barrera from All Star Youth Chess and John Quin from All American Chess Association both tied for 3rd in the Junior High section. Both of these players also gained more than 150 rating points in just this one tournament! Nicholas Ventura and Eric Huber both from the Chess Palace won 2nd and 3rd respectively in the Junior Varsity.

The spacious library venue of the tournament was made possible by Whittier High School teacher Kele Perkins. He also played a big role in making this tournament female friendly by inviting and planning of Abrahamyan's visit. Thanks Kele! Many of the tournament photos were also taken from his camera.

Special thanks to coaches and parents… to Mae Van Vooren for providing professional player portraits (miadolce.com), to Taras Mckey (Rio Vista Elementary coach) for overseeing many of the games when a TD was not around, and to Corey Eckhart for doing the lunch.