Fallon Chess Club

Belated congrats to the top finishers in our late fall weekly USCF-rated class tournaments!

Elite class winners (above left with Coach Sana): Reyansh Mane, Ryan Banerjee, Albert Zhao, Stefan Asghar-Ristanovic, and Krish Desai (Varchasv Garg not pictured)

Winners from Varsity A/B: Assistant Coach Dash Nagata, Advaith Sheela, Aarav Nayak, Andy Kim, Abhirim Leburu, Dev Vignesh, and Samrath Bhatia.

USCF-rated results: https://ratings.uschess.org/event/202512040303?section=0

(There were no rated games in the high-performance 1300+ class taught by GM Enrico, though student/assistant coach Leo Ni finished undefeated in non-rated games).

We then celebrated the end of the session with our typical 'fun' tournament. In the High-Performance class, Leo Ni and Arjun Shenoy defeated the duo of Coaches GM Enrico-Fred on time in a simul. In the other multi-class bughouse tournament, the top-finishing teams were:
1) Sebastian Karagozlu-Advaith Sheela tied for first with Dev Vignesh-Krish Desai with 7 points
Samrath Bhatia-Adhyan Banuri tied with Andy Kim-Coach Sana for third with 6 points
Brandon Kim-Coach Eric in 5th place with 5 points

Our Thursday after-school tournament training class at John Green Elementary (aka Fallon Chess) starts again on January 15th.

Register here:
GM-led High-Performance class (1300+ or equivalent): https://emeraldhillschess.jumbula.com/EmeraldHillsChess20252026Session/GMLedHighPerformance1300Class

Elite and Varsity A-B Classes: https://emeraldhillschess.jumbula.com/EmeraldHillsChess20252026Session/FallonChessClub202526NewLocationTournamentTrainingNowOpentoALLTriValleyStudents

Questions? [email protected] or [email protected]

We had an amazing week at the World Schools Chess Championship in Washington DC, magnificently organized by FIDE - International Chess Federation and the International School Chess Federation.

Coming in as a last minute wild card, we outperformed our seeding and expectations by defeating the top teams from Chile and Kenya, drawing a powerful-but-shorthanded Kyrgyzstan team, and narrowly losing to Czech Republic after time pressure undid the winning positions we had on all 4 boards.

All of our players - Reyansh Nuti at board 1, Naman Jain at 2, Anika Prasad at 3, Rayan Jain at 4, and Arnav Solan at 4/5 - competed excellently and achieved major individual upsets.

The highlight was Naman Jain unleashing a prepared 2 pawn gambit in the French defense to surprise and upset a 2000-rated Candidate Master from Kyrgyzstan. Rayan Jain also defeated a 1600-rated player from Kazakhstan and achieved an even 3-3 record.

Our player of the tournament was Arnav Solan, who went 4-2 (plus 1 forfeit win) to win the 3rd place individual medal for his board. All of our players earned first-time FIDE ratings higher than their current USCF ones. Arnav also defeated a Women's Grandmaster in a simul, while Rayan drew her.

Fallon finished tied for 39th out of 55 teams (43rd on tiebreak) in our first international competition. The winner, India's Velammal School, had an average rating of 2210, and two International Masters on their team. Velammal has produced 20 Grandmasters, including world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and FIDE No. 4 Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.

Congrats to The Harker School of San Jose for taking third place!

We also got advance notice that Fallon Chess will be winning an award from FIDE's Chess in Education Commission for a top school chess program - see the photo of our team (competing) with top FIDE officials and Coach Eric Lai behind them.

Thanks again to FIDE and the International School Chess Federation for putting on the best tournament we have ever played, and all of the cultural interchange moments both big and small we got to experience, from the Olympic-style opening team march, to the pomp of our closing awards ceremony, and the conversations in the game lounge, sports field, and cafeteria.

https://s2.chess-results.com/tnrWZ.aspx?lan=1&art=8&flag=30&snr=2&SNode=S0&tno=1226551

Seven Fallon team members competed at the massive 4,600-player SuperNationals scholastic championship this weekend in Orlando, Florida.

All of our players fought hard, playing seven rounds at the grueling Game/90 minutes + 10 second delay time control, which created games lasting 2-4 hours each! All were in contention for individual medals until the last 1-2 rounds.

In the end, Fallon placed ninth in the country in the highly-competitive K-8 U1400 section, thanks to our four scorers: Aryaman Majumder, Rayan Jain, Reyansh Nuti, and Gloria Beichen She.

That approximately matches our 2019 Nationals showing, when Fallon placed 8th in the K-8 U1250 and 12th in the K-8 Championship.

Fallon barely missed out on a Top 25 team trophy in the K-12 U1200 section, as our short-handed team (Pranav Mehta, Arnav Solan, and Naman Jain) placed 29th.

Congrats to our individual medal winners:
Aryaman Majumder (5-2, tie 14th in the K-8 U1400)
Fallon alum-moved-to-North Carolina Tejas Kunduru (5-2, tie 15th in the K-12 U1600)
Future Fallon player Adhvik Nuti (5-2, tie 19th in K-6 U1000),
Future Fallon player Neel Mehta (5-2, tie 19th in K-3 U600).