Sunday, April 25

Joanna Liu Wins Girls Nationals U-8!














Believe it or not, the CalChess Scholastics were not the only major chess championship held last weekend. Three Bay Area girls flew to Columbus, Ohio to play in the All-Girls Nationals, hosted by the Kasparov Chess Foundation. They competed against 210 of the best girls around the country, and even managed to bring home a first place trophy!

Congratulations to 2nd grader Joanna Liu (1410) of Weibel Elementary for taking winning the U-8 division with 5.5 out of 6! She worked hard for her trophy, facing five of the top 10 in the final standings, including a pair of challenging 1300s. Joanna's proud coach Ted Castro writes that she was "doing 4-5 hours of training every week to make sure that she gets better and better" (plus 4 hours of play and coaching at Weibel). Practice makes perfect! As the photos prove, Joanna insisted on wearing her lucky old Weibel team shirt in Ohio. (Thanks to her parents for the photos above.)

Two other local girls both scored 4.0/6 to finish in the top 10. 3rd grader Alisha Chawla, also from Weibel, played up and took home the 10th place trophy in the difficult U-10 section, losing only to the top two rated players. 2nd grader Alanna Song received the 8th place trophy in U-8. Well done!

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