Happy holidays to all of the students and parents from myself, your superstar coaches and teachers, and the rest of the BayAreaChess Enrichment program! 2017 was a big year for us, but expect bigger and better things in 2018!

With so many things to talk about, there will be two end-of-year updates:
1) this one for students and parents enrolled in one of our many after-school, weekend, and (new!) online classes;
and
2) another one focused on our junior and adult tournament players, from Executive Director, Judit Sztaray.
Please read both to learn about the breadth of just what we do here at BayAreaChess!
 

Enrichment Classes

The heart of our Enrichment program are the classes we offer at 100 schools and community organizations around Northern California.
Our goal is to promote the benefits and joys of playing chess at every level, instill values such as sportsmanship, resourcefulness, and resilience, and help interested kids get into more serious tournament play.
Some are long-time after-school programs such as Oster Elementary, with more than 40 kids in its program, Harker Lower School, with 100 students, and Challenger Berryessa (below), all in San Jose. Challenger has 80 kids, where we send 7 coaches each week.

Tyrone Rothman (right) is one of our students at the Monday after-school program at Oster led by Coach James Bethany. According to his mother AJ, Tyrone thrives in the class and its competitive environment, and has learned to be more patient “because if you go fast you aren’t going to make a good move.” It’s also helped Tyrone “figure out how to focus, concentrate, bounce back” and more. 
One of the strongest players at Oster, Tyrone has started to challenge himself at rated tournaments. At the K-12 Grade Level Championships in December, he took 6th place in the K-6 Junior Varsity section - congrats Tyrone!

Showcasing our geographic and socioeconomic diversity, we’ve also opened programs more recently in West Portal Elementary in San Francisco, programs in the Palo Alto area like Palo Verde Elementary (below), and our latest programs at 3 elementary schools in Brentwood.

Enrichment class at Palo Verde Elementary School in Palo Alto with Coach Jasmine Kaur (right).

For absolute beginners, we run lunchtime programs at elementary schools. Take Roosevelt Elementary in Redwood City, where 30+ kids, about 40% of them girls, come every week, according to coach Theo Biyiasas. “The kids run in, yelling ‘Chess!’ They’re really excited to play, and it’s really fun to watch them learn, often by themselves,” he says.  
Ten of our lunchtime programs this year were at Title I schools serving lower-income students, such as Grant Elementary and Horace Mann Elementary, both in San Jose. These kids love chess. Through some amazing private donors, we have been able to send some of our best coaches such as IM Faik Aleskerov (Horace Mann) and James Bethany (Grant).
If you are willing to step up, please know that as little as $2,000 is enough to sponsor a program, including coaching salary and equipment fee, at one school for an entire year! We make zero profit at these programs, but love providing them. Please contact me or [email protected] if you are interested - your help and support is greatly appreciated. All donations are tax deductible!
If you would like to bring a BAC lunchtime or after-school program to your child's school, please reach out to us at [email protected].

Climbing the Ladder

As players improve, they naturally crave stronger competition. We offer several ways for kids to get that. Our weekend clubs in four locations in the South Bay offer a blend of lessons, games, unrated play, and pizza! For the second year we have also continued our Rising Star series of tournaments. These have attracted 20-25 players each month, and help players and their parents bridge the sometimes intimidating gap between enrichment and weekend clubs, and actual rated tournaments.

One good example of this ladder effect is Noah Spiessens (below), a 6th grader at Santa Rita Elementary in Los Altos. According to his mother, Annie, Noah “had been playing chess once in awhile with his dad” when he started playing at an after-school BAC class, which he “really liked...enjoying learning more about strategies and different ways of thinking. And beating his dad. The points system [used in class] really encourages him and he is very proud of the trophy he got to bring home after his last class.”

Within several months, Noah had jumped into full rated tournaments, winning a trophy in his debut at the CalChess Grade Level Championships K-6 Junior Varsity tournament in December. “We had a great experience...everybody was really nice,” says Annie. “He learned a lot from this...I am happy he found something he likes to do and is pretty good at. He is the youngest of three and sometimes he feels he has to compete with his siblings. Nobody plays chess so it can really be his thing.”
While it’s early to deduce benefits, Annie has observed that Noah “thinks things through more when he is doing math problems instead of jumping right in...Strategies are important when dealing with any kind of problem.”

For BayAreaChess, our longtime experience with kids helped us recognize what they and their parents need to comfortably progress in chess. These strategies have paid off - the SuperStates tournament in March attracted a record 1,100 players, more than 10% - 120 of them - newer players from our enrichment programs, while the Grade Level Championships also drew a record 500 players, in large part to newer players like Noah and Tyrone.

For Experienced Tournament Players: BAC Teams

Our BAC Team Classes every Saturday offer players rated 1000 and above the chance to learn from master, IM and GM coaches, as well as compete against some of the best junior players in the Bay Area and country. How good? Well, the average rating of the players in our top class, the Elite Team, is between 2000-2300! They include players like:
- NM Christopher Yoo, the top 10 year old in the U.S. in 2017, who defeated and drew several GMs this summer for his first IM norm;
- Eric Yuhan Li, U.S. no. 1 ranked 9 year old and winner of the Pan-Am Under 10 tournament in Costa Rica;
- FM Teemu Virtanen, 2017 Finland National Champion;
- NM Ivan Ke, who finished 10th at the Barber Invitational for the best middle school player in the country;
- NM Vinesh Ravuri, whose rating increase an astounding 1400 points to Expert level in 7 months while a BAC Team member.

There are many others who’ve made similar leaps and bounds while a member of a BAC Team. Take Elite Team member, Alan Hung of Saratoga High School, who has increased his rating 1,000 points in the past 2 years. According to his father, Hung-Wen, BAC’s weekly classes have given Alan the opportunity to “challenge himself” as well as make many friends. His father also attributes Alan’s better concentration and focus on schoolwork to chess, too.

Alan Hung (blue jacket) with BAC clubmate Jeff Wang at CalChess Grade Level Championships in December.

Building Our Deep Bench of Coaches

Our programs are great and help kids improve for a simple reason: our very deep roster of superstar coaches. Some, like our longtime senior lead coach and Assistant Director of Enrichment Wolfgang Behm;  senior lead coach and club coordinator, James Bethany, senior coach Theo Biyiasas, or lead coach Jasmine Kaur, have years of unparalleled experience helping kids reach their potential and have fun. Others, in addition to being great teachers, have world-caliber competitive experience, as we had 5 GMs, 2 IMs and various other FIDE and USCF masters teaching for us in 2017. Learn more about GM Cristian Chirila, GM Daniel Naroditsky, GM Enrico Sevillano, IM Faik Aleskerov, IM Kostya Kavutskiy, WFM Moogii Tsegmed, and others by reading their updated profiles.

We are strengthening this already deep bench when we bring aboard a new GM, Atanas Kolev (above). A Bulgarian native, Kolev is one of the most prolific chess professionals ever, having won or shared first in a remarkable 61 international chess tournaments. He has defeated and drawn many of the best players in the world, including former world champions Viswanathan Anand and Anatoly Karpov, and has written 3 books on the Sicilian Defense. Best of all, Kolev is an experienced chess coach and teacher, having coached players from former women’s world champion, GM Antoaneta Stefanova, to summer chess camps in Chicago, to classes and private students in Las Vegas, where Kolev has lived for the past 2 years. He’ll be joining us on January 1st full-time as an instructor and coach. Read more about Kolev in his Enrichment profile and also on his blog. Welcome Atanas!
 

Summer Camps

World no. 3 GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov playing a simul at our Master Summer Camp.

E-Learning For The Win

At BayAreaChess, we are always willing to innovate in order to improve our programs. That’s why we do things like offer a class on blindfold chess with Guinness Record holder (for blindfold simul), GM Timur Gareyev.

And it’s why we’ve just launched a new set of interactive online classes with the help of Chess University led by one of our most popular instructors, IM Kostya Kavutskiy (above).
Click on the image below to watch a sample lesson by Kostya.

Open to existing BayAreaChess students as well as players from anywhere in the world, the classes at http://bac.chessuniversity.com will be available at all levels, and offer personalized instruction (students may have their games analyzed) from top-notch coaches. Each class is also recorded, so students can review and watch again at their own pace. With additional homework exercises provided for each class, students will be engaged and encouraged to reach their full chess potential. Best of all - they start at the low monthly cost of $49, perfect for a holiday stocking stuffer. Visit http://bac.chessuniversity.com to see the full list of classes.

As always, BayAreaChess and I always welcome feedback and suggestions. Please email me at [email protected] or drop us a message at our Facebook page. And if you’d like to join our team as a chess coach or teacher or tournament director, please contact myself (for chess coaching) or Judit Sztaray (for TDing). We provide training and top-notch colleagues.

Happy holidays!

Abel Talamantez

Director of Enrichment & Deputy Director
BayAreaChess, Inc.