Silicon Valley Challenge #6 Results

Article submitted by organizer and chief TD Charles Sun.

The Silicon Valley Challenge #6 attracted a total of 41 players to the Century Arts Alliance Foundation near the Great Mall in San Jose. Snacks and drinks were complimentary as usual and participants helped themselves between rounds. Despite the warm California weather, players were very comfortable in the air conditioned building. Parents even took the liberty of camping on the lawn outside.

The Open section was filled with some of the top juniors in the Bay Area along with one National Master and one International Master. Not surprisingly, there was no perfect score in the Open, although NM Albert Rich (see photo above) did win clear first, only yielding a draw to IM Ricardo DeGuzman in the last round. Albert’s rating is once again over 2200, gaining seven points from the event. Kudos also to IM Ricardo DeGuzman, Brian Wai, and Qijie Zhu, who shared second place.

Congratulations to Partha Vora in the Open section. At Silicon Valley Challenge #5, he took a share of second place for U1700. Two weeks later, he shared first place in the U1700 class prize. His rating went up 75 points in the past month! Also, great job to co-champion Felix Hernandez-Campos whose provisional rating has skyrocketed from 1619 to 1723.

In the U1600 section, there was fierce competition among its 13 players. Unrated Ron Steedman took clear first by an entire point, winning all of his games! (So goes the pithy saying of “play the board, not the opponent.”) Congratulations to Austin Cheng and John Canessa for sharing second place and to Leland Yu and Daniel Chen for splitting the U1000 prizes.

Thank you to everyone for participating in the Silicon Valley Challenge. I am glad so many parents and chess participants enjoyed the atmosphere; I had a great time directing the event as well. Future events will always be publicized on the Sun Chess Club website: sunchessclub.googlepages.com and will be emailed to previous participants.