2012 K12 Grade Level Nationals - Dec 2, 2012

In round 6, Cameron played Jonathan Chiang and only managed to draw.  In round 7, he is playing Jason Shi.

Last Day - December 2 - 2012 K12 Grade Level Nationals - Orlando, Florida

Today Cameron received his fourth All-American Team jacket, being named a member of the 2013 All American Team. They always put his name on the jacket, and this year, he opted to have "Caminator" embroidered instead of his name. It's such an honor to be named with an elite group of young scholastic chess players. 

Today, team Kennedy has 12.5 points. They are ahead of IS 318 by 2.5 points. We hope we can maintain that lead to take the team championships.

Cameron is playing Jonathan Chiang on board 1. There are currently three players with a perfect 5-0 record.  Jonathan, Cameron and David Floeder from MN followed by 11 players with 4-0, including fellow Kennedy Team Mate Pranav Srihari, then 6 players with 3.5, including Kennedy Team Mate, Kingsley Wang.  Let's go Team Kennedy.

December 1 - Rounds 3-5 - K12 Grade Level Nationals - Orlando, Florida

	Cameron's third round opponent, Brittany Nguyen. It's the second girl Cameron has played in this tournament. It's interesting that there are not many girls playing chess and Cameron plays two in the last three rounds. He won this game. Since the round started at 10:00 a.m. we were a little late to this round and had to run to the playing hall. The clocks were just starting when Cameron entered.
	Cameron's fourth round opponent, Prateek Pinisetti. this was Cameron's longest game so far. He was losing in the opening, but ended up winning in the end. This game had him a little worried. This time Cameron's opponent arrived a little late to the round, Cameron thought Prateek was doing some preparation for the opening because he played the opening very well. Cameron is now 4-0.
	Cameron's fifth round opponent, fellow Californian Art Zhao, the two have met many times. Unfortunately Art had to be black twice in a row. Cameron was due to be white and because he is higher rated, he got his color and Art had to be black two times in a row. Cameron wins this round and is no2 5-0.

We did take time to go to Downtown Disney. We went to Wolfgang Pucks Pizzeria and walked the length of Downtown. We took pictures where the boys would cooperate. It was the fastest that I've ever been in and out of Downtown Disney, I didn't have any time to to shop or have fun :-(.

2nd Round Update

Round 2 Opponent Jake Hum From Arizona

Cameron won this match in 33 moves.  The opponent, Jake Hum, played the opening a little weird and blundered both of his bishops on moves 18 and 19, which gave Cameron a huge advantage, and he was able to checkmate shortly after that.

We are hoping that his team mates finish early, and we can take a quick trip to Downtown Disney tonight.

Unfortunately, Kingsley lost to William Graif.  He played a long game and almost ran out of time, ended up blundering with five minutes left on the clock.  Pranav won, so that leaves team Kennedy with 5 points, tied with the prestigious Chess School IS 318.

Tomorrow Pranav's opponent Christopher Rush is from IS 318 so it's a decisive match for the team. 

Arrived in Orlando Florida for 2012 K12 Grade Level Nationals - November 29 & 30th

	We flew to Orlando from San Francisco with fellow team mate Pranav Srihari and his mom Vanitha. Here are the boys at the airport waiting to board the plane. Most people think we are a little crazy coming to Florida, right after Slovenia. I'd have to say I agree completely. We really didn't factor in the Thanksgiving week off, and Cameron only attending three days of school before he was out on Thursday & Friday. He has a lot of homework to catch up on.
Cameron met with David Pruess from Chesskid.com to talk about creating some chess videos over the winter break. His videos will cover his games from 2012 World Youth Chess Championships in Maribor, Slovenia. We are looking forward to this challenge and hope that it will provide Cameron another outlet for his chess skills. Usually he is not too excited to try new things, but he seems to be jumping into this head first. He's watched a lot of chess videos and knows chess, so I guess it's not all that new to him! Keep your eyes open for the videos at http://chesskid.com.
	At the opening ceremonies, before round 1 began, they made a special announcement about Cameron winning the silver medal in Slovenia. They had him walk onto the stage to take a bow. It's a good thing Cameron was listening because I was talking to Vanitha, and Cameron said to me, "Mom, they are going to say my name", and he had to run up on stage for a bow. I barely got this photo before they rushed him off the stage.

Round 1 - Begins. Cameron is playing Emily McClanahan from Illinois, Pranav is playing Aidan Taylor from Virgina, Kingsley is playing Tony Bernardo from Florida (Not Pictured). Let's go Team Kennedy.
Here's Team Kennedy all together.  All three boys won their first match today.

It is over!

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Things have been a bit hectic around here.   Here is a very brief update, more later...

Cameron continued his hot streak after the rest day, beating Timur Trubchaninov (Russia), Harsha Bharathakoti (India), and Puranik Abhimanyu (India) in the next three rounds to take over sole possession of first place. In the 10th and penultimate round he faced teammate and world #1, Samuel Sevian. After a long and well fought battle, he lost. In the final round, Cameron played Parham Maghsoodloo of Iran and won the game to finish with 9 out of 11 rounds. Zhu Yi (China) on board 3 won to finish with 9. The top board, Samuel and Savelliy Golubov (Russia) drew so now there is a 4-way tie for first place. We are anxiously awaiting the official standings to find out who won the title.

Check back later for an update and some pics from the awards ceremony...

The "Rest" Day

Two years ago, when we went to the World Youth in Porto Carras, Greece, we took a tour of Thessaloniki on our rest day.  While I really enjoyed the trip, Cameron remembers it as being quite boring and tiring.  Most of all, he really wanted to avoid riding on a bus for several hours.

This year, the tournament organizers had arranged several interesting looking excursions, but each involved at least 3 and up to 7 hours of bus rides.  Cameron declared that he was not interested, and I reluctantly agreed.

With the organized excursions ruled out, Cameron and I had a "choose your own adventure" kind of day.  We slept in as late as possible and ate a leisurely breakfast.  After the meal, we headed up the gondola to the top of the mountain.  On our previous trip to the top, our friend Jeffery told us that he wanted to play ping pong with us.  We didn't have a definite plan, but we decided to stop by their room, just in case. Fortunately we caught Jeffery and his father Wayne as they were leaving their room to go play badminton.  Turns out the weather outside was not ideal for badminton, so we took a short walk in the cool air.  After the walk, we went downstairs to the gymnasium to play ping pong.  Once there, we were joined by brother Tan and Trung Nguyen of Virginia.  We played many games of Around the World and both kids and Dads had a great time.  I'm sure Jeffery will post a full crosstable for the event as he was quite keen on tabulating everyone's score.

After ping pong, we headed back to the gondola to figure out our next plan.  We ran into Craig and his father trying to catch the next one down.  Unfortunately for them, the gondola was shutting down for an hour.  We convinced them to walk down the mountain with us.  We started off descending the main ski slope which was quite steep in places and very slick with the recent rains.  Despite a couple of slips, nobody got seriously hurt (a few bruised egos and some muddy clothes).  Eventually we made it to a flatter trail and it was actually quite beautiful.  The whole descent only took us an hour and it probably would have been much quicker if the terrain had been a bit dryer.

One of the nice features of this year's organization is that your official accreditation is also valid as a bus pass on all the city's buses.  When we reached the bottom of the hill, we hopped on a bus for the short ride into the heart of Maribor's Old City.  Maribor is a very nice small city with only 100,000 inhabitants, but it has many nice old churches and castles to look at.  The city is also part of a popular wine growing region.  Here Cameron is sampling some of the city's finest, just like his Mom would do.

One of the popular tourist spots in Maribor is known as the Old Vine.  The grape vine in the background is over 400 years old and still produces fruit.  The vine grows on a trellis which spans the entire of facade of the building behind the boys.  Each year they harvest 35 to 55 Kg of grapes from the vine and produce approximately 100 bottles of wine.  As you can imagine, these bottles are quite prized.

In town we had a little pizza and ice cream to break up the monotony of the hotel food, and then hopped on the bus for the short ride back to our room.  After the busy day, it was time for some relaxation and then studying for the next opponent.  In round 7, Cameron will face Timur Trubchaninov from Russia on board 2.  Timur already has draws against the #1 and #8 seeds and he defeated the #3 seed, so we know that this game will not be easy.

The Double Day

The most dreaded part of the World Youth tournament is Day 5, when the kids have to play two rounds of chess on the same day.  Due to the busy schedule, there is no time to prepare with the US coaches, and little time to even prepare in your room.  It is also the point in the tournament where the matches start to ratchet up in difficulty as your opponents become stronger and stronger.

Trying to adjust to a timezone nine hours different from your own is challenging, especially after flying through the night.  The challenge is eased somewhat by the fact that the games typically don't start until 3pm in the afternoon.  Prior to Day 5, my biggest concern was making sure that Cameron got enough sleep.  However, on Day 5, to accomodate both rounds, the first round starts at 10am.  We've been slowly adjusting our schedule to wake up earlier and earlier.  By the start of round 5, Cameron was comfortably waking up in time to be refreshed and ready to go.

The opponent for the first round of the double day was Roven Vogel of Germany.  Cameron faced two Germans in Brazil last year and knew that Roven was probably stronger than his rating would indicate.  In the game, Cameron saddled his opponent with an isolated queen pawn (IQP) and took him into an endgame where the pawn was a major weakness.  Cam couldn't find GM de Firmian after the round, so he reunited with our old friend GM Sam Palatnik, who guided Cameron through his first World Youth in Greece.  It was nice to spend time with Sam and he seemed to really appreciate Cameron's play.  The relatively quick victory gave Cameron plenty of time to rest and prepare for the second round of the day.

In round 6, Cameron faced an Indian by the name of P Elancherlathan.  We aren't sure what the P stood for, but I'm sure if was as difficult to spell as his last name :-).  Elancherlathan had already upset three higher rated players, including American Kadhir Pillai, and he managed a draw against the red-hot American Craig Hilby.  So, Cameron knew that P was not to be taken lightly. P played the opening well, and Cameron had to work to gain an advantage.  After picking up a pawn, it was still not clear how to win, but Cameron found a very nice combination to win material and the game finished soon after.

What a difference a few days makes... After the upsetting loss in round 2, Cameron felt that he had really put his whole tournament in jeopardy.  Now, going into the rest day, Cameron has scored 5 out of 6 and is tied for 3rd place, right behind his fellow teammates, Jeffery Xiong and Samuel Sevian.  Anything can happen from this point forward.  Stay tuned to the blog for future updates...

Day 4

Day 4 brought Cameron a tough opponent: Ortik Nimtagov from Uzbekistan.  Ortik had already drawn against the #4 seed in the tournament, Olexandr Triapishko of Ukraine. He also drew against a strong American, Jonathan Chiang.  Despite Ortik's lower rating, he could not be taken lightly.  Fortunately, Cameron might quick work of him in this round, which is always a plus heading into the difficult "double day".

One of the best parts of traveling to these types of tournaments is getting to spend time with friends, new and old.  Our old buddy, Rayan Taghizadeh was so jealous that Cameron and his friend Vignesh both have blogs that he told his Dad that he wanted to start one.  Here he is after dinner working on his "blog".  Shhhh! Don't tell Rayan that his Dad really just has him typing stuff into the iPad Notes application.

Days 2 & 3

Day 2

Now that we are mostly recovered from the jet lag, we are starting to do a little more exploring of the surrounding area.  For the most part, Maribor, Slovenia looks like a little "postcard"European city.  That being said, we have encountered the odd structure here and there.  This garage door, located just down the hill from the hotel, caught our attention.

Cameron was paired against another American teammate, so that meant that he couldn't receive any preparation from the team coaches.  We took some of our extra time to explore a little further from home.  Our friends Wayne and Jeffery from Dallas are staying at a hotel at the top of the mountain.  We wanted to check out their place, so we hopped on the gondola for the short ride to the summit.

The hotel at the top has a very alpine feel to it.  The cool, fresh air reminded me of autumn in Tahoe.  We walked the premises with Jeffery and his father, and even managed to have a short snowball fight.

Jeffery was nice enough to invite us to join them for lunch.  I'll have to agree with him that while the cable car is fun and the view is fantastic, the food is better at our hotel.

Did I mention the view?

After lunch we headed down on the gondola so that I could work and Cameron could prepare for his game.

The opponent for round 2 is the young, up-and-coming Nicolas D Checa from New York.  We weren't able to locate many games for Nico, but had some confidence in what Cameron would be facing.  The opening went much as we anticipated, but it was very drawish.  As they entered the endgame, the position was a dead draw.  Cameron decided to push for a win and see if he could get Nico to crack.  Unfortunately, Nico played stout defense and Cameron over extended himself, pushed too hard, and lost the game.  Cameron was very upset, but this is a long tournament.

Day 3

As a whole, the organization and facilities at this World Youth are the best of the three that we've attended.  However, the playing hall is a bit tight.  To alleviate some of the crowding, they've instituted a rule starting in round 2 that no parents are allowed into the playing hall at all.  That means no more pictures of Cameron's opponents.

Today's opponent was Priyav Chandna from Botswana.  Turns out that there are very few competitive chess players in Africa and it was hard to find a lot of games for this opponent.  However, we did have a few and Cameron was able to prepare for the match with GM de Firmian.  Despite preparing a few ideas, none of them materialized over the board.  In fact, Cameron saw a second move he had never seen before: 1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 h5.  Coach Nick said the game was probably already over at that point :-).  Cameron played another solid game and cruised to a nice bounce back victory after yesterday's disappointment.  This is a long tournament and there is still plenty of time to make up for one mistake.

Day 1

Day 1

Friends and family often express concern about the amount of school that Cameron misses to pursue his chess.  While it is a valid issue, we feel that the experiences he has at these large international events dwarf the negative aspects of missing a few days of school.

Today was one of those special experiences that doesn't occur in the typical classroom setting.  It turns out that this is the largest contingent of American citizens to ever travel to Slovenia as a group.  To mark this special occasion, the US Ambassador to Slovenia, Joseph A. Mussomeli, came to address the team and welcome us to Slovenia.  Ambassador Mussomeli, told us a bit about the country, the current political climate, and what his responsibilities are as an Ambassador.

After the short speech and Q&A, the kids all got to go up on stage and meet the Ambassador in small groups.  Here, Cameron exchanges a few words with him.

Following the event with the Ambassador, US Head of Delegation, Michael Khardokovsky, went over the key points from the morning's Technical Meeting.

With all of our commitments out of the way, it was time to return to the room to "relax".  Cameron did a little pre-game preparation while I worked.  I'm loving the 40Mb/s upload and download speeds provided by the hotel's Internet connection.

At 3pm (Maribor time), the tournament finally got under way.  Cameron is the #5 seed and got to play his game on a DGT digital chess board that relayed the moves to the Internet.  Interested parties can view live games at http://www.wycc2012.com/liveg.html

Cameron's first round opponent was Vassili Chesterkine from France.  Cameron was pretty nervous, and hoped to get off to a better start than last year.  It didn't take long, as Cameron caught his opponent in an opening trap on move 11, and won a piece for a pawn.  While Vassili did have some compensation for the pawn, Cameron was able to neutralize his threats and win the game in a pretty straightforward manner.

After the game, Cameron got to analyze his victory with GM Nick de Firmian.  Nick was very impressed with Cam's play. He even wanted Cameron to submit the game to GM John Fedorowicz for consideration to be published in John's upcoming article for Chess Life Online.

You could see that the win lifted a big amount of stress off of Cameron's shoulders.  After a nice dinner, it was back to the room for more work for me and some school work for Cameron.

Check back tomorrow for the next update...

Dobrodošli v Sloveniji

Dobrodošli v Sloveniji (Welcome to Slovenia)

When I would tell people that Cameron and I were traveling to Maribor, Slovenia for the World Youth Chess Championships, the first question that came out of most people's mouths was, "Where in the world is Slovenia?"

The Republic of Slovenia, is located just east of Italy and directly south of Austria.  It is part of the region formally known as Yugoslavia.  In the late 80s and early 90s, there was a Slovenian  "Spring", of sorts, which led to the adoption of democracy and independence from Yugoslavia.

To get to Slovenia, we flew from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany.  Our flight was on board an Airbus A380.  This massive aircraft, with two levels, carried over 800 passengers to Lufthansa's hub airport in Frankfort.  From there we had to transfer to a very small jet for a short one-hour flight to Graz, Austria.  The tiny plane was full of young chess players from all around the world, including USA teammates Kevin Moy and Joshua Sheng (both traveling with their mothers).

Once in Graz, we had to rendezvous with a couple of other flights for our transfer, by bus, to Slovenia.  While waiting for the other flights to arrive, Cameron and Joshua broke out a small magnetic set to get in some quick preparation.  The drive to Maribor took us through some very picturesque scenery in both Austria and Slovenia.

We are staying at Hotel Habakuk in Maribor.  This hotel seems to be located at a small "ski resort" although there is no snow and barely any hill to speak of.  It must get a lot colder here in the winter.  Some of Team USA is staying at a hotel "up the hill" and they have to take this gondola each day to get to and from their hotel.

Back at our hotel, the entire delegation from the USA gathered in the "team room" to get an update from USCF Director Jerry Nash and Head of Delegation Michael Khodarkovsky.  Michael also gave out the coaching assignments.  For this tournament, Cameron will be working with Nick deFirmian (GM-in-residence at the Mechanics Institute Chess Room).  The tournament starts tomorrow at 3pm, so we will try to keep you posted on this blog or you can check the official site at http://wycc2012.com

US Chess League: Week 1

The US Chess League is an online chess league that holds weekly matches, similar to other sporting leagues like the NFL.  16 different cities from around the nation host a chess team.  Many of the country's strongest adult and junior chess players  represent their region.

On a given week, each city must put together a four-person team chosen from their ten-person roster. The average rating of the team must be less than 2400. Teams from different cities face off in a head-to-head match. The team with the best combined score over all four boards wins the match. Teams with the best record over the course of the season make it to the playoffs and compete to be the league champion.

Mechanics' Institute Library and Chess Room

Because of some peculiarities with how the ratings are calculated, the league format favors teams with super strong grandmasters (GMs) and under-rated juniors. This season, Cameron was selected for the roster of the San Francisco Mechanics. The Mechanics have a long history of fielding strong teams with some of the top juniors in the country to complement their GMs.

Last night the Mechanics had their first match of the season against the Carolina Cobras.  On paper, the Mechanics appeared to be big favorites against the lower-rated Cobras, but in this format, anything can happen.

While Cameron's accomplishment of becoming a master at the age of 11 puts him in a pretty elite club, his teammate, Samuel Sevian, reached the milestone just before his 10th birthday.  Sam has been on a tear lately, picking up 100 rating points and two IM norms this summer!  He is exactly the kind of under-rated junior that makes the Mechanics such a dangerous threat.  On board #3, Sam's opponent last night was FM Ron Simpson.  Despite being 40 years older, Ron's experience was no match for Sam's sharp tactical play in the Yugoslav Attack.  Sam's game was the first to finish and it appeared that things were well in order.

Cameron's opponent on board #4 was the highest-rated scholastic player in North Carolina, high-schooler Joshua Mu.  As you can see in the picture, players are allowed to make their moves "over the board" (OTB) and relay their actions to their opponent using a computer.  This year, in addition to using the Internet Chess Club (ICC), some of the matches will be played on Chess.com.  Last night's match was the inaugural event on Chess.com. After some initial confusion about logins and such, the games eventually got under way.  You can see here that Cameron's game is several moves into the opening and Sam hasn't even begun playing.  Cameron played the black side of a Classical French Defense and got a very comfortable position out of the opening.  With large rating differences in SF's favor on the top two boards and Sam's game already in the bag, it appeared that the Mechanics were rolling.

The Mechanics' formula for the US Chess League has always been to field the strongest players available on the top boards and complement them with the wealth of junior talent that the Bay Area offers.  The top board was occupied by GM Vinay Bhat.  Despite being a former junior star here in the Bay Area, Bhat likes to play his USCL games "old skool", complete with paper notation sheet and analog clock. Vinay's opponent was IM Jonathan Schroer. With the white pieces and a significant rating advantage, San Francisco was the clear favorite in this game.  As the game progressed, Bhat continued to improve his position while Schroer retreated, the victory seemed within our grasp.

Finally, on board #2, the Mechanics' top-rated player GM Jesse Kraai faced off against the dangerous young Kassa Korley from New York.  The multi-talented Korley is in his second year at Duke University and had a very successful season for the Cobras last year.  Jesse got off to a rough start in this round due to some technical difficulties.  You can see him here, visibly frustrated with his computer/wireless connection.  Eventually, Kraai gave up on his laptop and moved to one of the desktop machines with a wired connection, but by this time the damage was done; Jesse's position appeared to be slightly worse against the young upstart.

With Sam's game complete, Cameron and Vinay both in good shape, the problems in Jesse's game did not seem that significant.  However, Cameron seemed to get a bit lost in the middlegame, and slowly his advantage diminished.  Eventually, Cameron made a blunder and Joshua pounced.  Almost simultaneously with Cameron's collapse, Vinay launched an attack which just simply did not work.  Suddenly things began to look very dark for the Mechanics.  Despite an overwhelming attack from Joshua, Cam played on in the hopes of swindling a draw to give the team some chances.  Within moments of each other, both Cameron and Vinay resigned.  With Jesse looking worse or possibly holding a draw, the team's chances looked very bleak.  Despite having a couple of hours of homework and it being a school night, Cameron insisted on staying to watch Kraai attempt the miracle.  The wily GM slowly maneuvered to improve his position, and Cameron reported that he now felt that Jesse was somewhat better, but it was still probably a draw, which would not be enough to salvage the Mechanics' match.  Then in a fluke which can only be attributed to a combination of GM magic, the late hour in North Carolina, and extreme time pressure for young Kassa, Jesse managed to fork Korley's King and Bishop to win the game and secure a draw for the team.

It was a great way to end what could have been a disastrous first week of the season.  Cameron enjoyed himself and is looking forward to playing more matches in the coming weeks.  We will try to keep you posted on the Mechanics as the season progresses.  You can find more information about the US Chess League on their website.

Team Kennedy, 1st Place Champions K-8 Jr. High Nationals, San Diego, CA

Udit Iyengar (5th Place)

Kesav Visawanda (7th Place)

Cameron Wheeler (8th Place)

Neel Apte (15th Place)

Pranav Srihari (30th Place)

Jr. High School Nationals Begin in San Diego

Arrived in San Diego last night (Thursday, April 26th with my whole family.  The Jr. High School Nationals are being held here, and I'm playing in the K-8 Championship Section.  It's being held at the Town & Country Resort, which is very close to Sea World.  The resort is very big.  Our room is in the Regency Towers which is farthest tower from the playing hall, but it's a very short walk, and the room is not that noisy. We checked in, checked out the playing hall, and looked in on the blitz tournament going on.  Then we went to dinner with the Beilin's.  We went to a very modern restaurant at the Fashion Valley Mall.  The restaurant was called Stacks and you use iPads to order your meal, order refills, and pay.  I think the Beilin's are going to implement this system at home in the bay area.  I can't wait to see Natasha's reaction to the new program.  The mall is very close to the resort.  We drove but it is a very short walk.


Today the first round was at 1:00 p.m. against and 8th grader from Texas named Shota Kaieda.  Here I am sitting at Board 5 waiting for him to arrive.  The biggest disappointment was that IS 318 from New York switched sections to K-9 at the last minute.  The top two boards were now in another section and Team Kennedy with Neel Apte, Kesav Visawanda, Udit Iyengar, Pranav Srihari and myself, were really looking for a good team match against them.  Since they changed sections at the last minute we were not able to switch into the K-9 Section.  I won my first match in less than 90 minutes and was able to rest up for my next match at 7:00 p.m.  All the team Kennedy also won, as well as Allan & Vignesh.  Blake lost.

My brother and my dad went to Sea World.

Here my brother is at the Shamu show, and on the other side he is at the Sea Lion Show.  They got to do the whole park, while my mom worked on her homework and I played chess.



Here I am with my very good friends, Allan Beilin from Atherton, and Blake Wong from Coalinga.  Although I only see these guys at chess events, I really enjoy spending time with them.  Why do I look so short in the middle of them.  That Blake has gotten so tall, they must really have good food in Coalinga...(Moooooo).

My second match was with Edgar Santoya a seventh grader from Texas.  I won this match in about 2 and half hours.  Allan & Kesav also won their matches.  Right now, Neel & Udit are still playing.  Tomorrow we have three matches at 9:00 a.m., 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.   I better get a good night sleep which is very difficult with my little brother in the room.  He wakes up very early and makes noise all night.