Silver Knights Chess

USCF Rating Report 

Last Sunday, 15 scholastic chessplayers gathered at the Bryn Mawr Community Center to study for a day with IM Bryan Smith and NM Adam Weissbarth. The players were broken up into groups by rating. The championship game of the top group featured 7th grader Kunal Lobo, rated 1738, and 2nd-grader Kevin Zhou, rated 1165. Kunal, playing white, sacrificed a pawn in the early middlegame to stop Kevin from castling. The game was unclear for a long time, with both players having chances to win the game. In the end, Kunal's experience and steadiness won the day, as he outplayed Kevin in a long endgame that turned into a time scramble. Congratulations also go out to Jerry Mangan (768), Jacob Guynee (630), and John Bolger IV (322) for winning their respective groups.

This week, IM Bryan Smith analyzes his games from rounds 3, 4, and 5 of the recently completed World Open in Philadelphia. See the Pennsylvania champion go up against some of the best players in the world, including a round 5 battle against the eventual tournament co-champion, 15-year-old Indian prodigy Parimarjan Negi. Negi is well-known within the chess community for becaming a Grandmaster at the age of 13, the second-youngest player ever to attain that ranking.

USCF Rating Report

Congratulations to the winners of the July Joust chess tournament:

Kevin Zhou in the 4-8/Championship section;
Aaron Lee in the K-3 U/1000 section;
Germantown Friends School in the 4-8/Championship section;
Princeton Charter School in the K-3 U/1000 section;

Eagleville Elementary School also had a big day. Only two students from Eagleville played in the tournament, but both of them, Kevin Zhou and Aaron Lee, won all of their games and took first place in their respective sections!

Coming up this week:

1) LM Sonny Kamberi analyzes an interesting game played by former world champion Bobby Fischer. The game was played in a simul, so Fischer was also playing many other people at the same time.

2) IM Bryan Smith goes over his first two games from the recently completed World Open in Philadelphia. See how the Pennsylvania champion thinks and analyzes!

USCF Rating Report

Thirty scholastic chessplayers gathered in Horsham, PA on June 28 to compete in the June Crush chess tournament. Andrew Luo dominated the K-3 U/1000 section by winning all four games, pushing his rating above 800 for the first time. Scoring 3-1 and tying for 2nd - 5th place were Brennon Paik, Alexander Roth, Matthew Schaeffer, and Andrew Brownlie.

Jerry Li won the 4-8 U/1000 section despite a late start. After a half-point bye in the first round, Jerry won all three of his games to finish in clear first with 3.5/4 points. Max DuBoff, Yasasvi Hari, and Dennis Lee finished a half-point behind with 3 points.

Kevin Zhou won the K-12 championship section by winning all three of his games. Kevin defeated state K-3 champion Wesley Paik and state kindergarten champion Benjamin Lu, moving his rating all the way up to 1177. Kevin has been improving rapidly, and should be in the top 20 nationally for his age group when the next rating supplement comes out.

We've now switched to weekly updates of the Online Training Center. This week, we are focusing on some lesser-known opening lines:

- Play the Scandinavian, part I
- Play the Scandinavian, part II
- The Accelerated Dragon for white, part II