SGVCC Excels at SCCF Inter-Club Championship

The Southern California Chess Federation (SCCF) organized an exciting inter-club competition at the San Diego Chess Club on February 16, 2025. San Gabriel Valley Chess Club sent two teams of four players each to take part in the ten team competition. The format was four rounds with a Game 45 minute/5 second delay time control. In team events you add up and then divide the ratings of the team members to create a rating for the team itself.

It was tough competition with the top rated San Diego A Team boasting a 2170 average. SGVCC sent an A Team rated 2057 and a B Team rated 1914. In the first round, our B Team beat the much higher rated ICEA Team (2099) and our A Team beat La Palma Chess Club (1906), a club that has been around at the same location in Orange County since the 1970’s! Round two got tougher for our heroes when our B Team had to face the formidable San Diego A Team, but our A Team drew its match against the San Diego B Team (2030). Round 3 saw our B Team once again rise to the challenge by drawing the North County A Team (2020) and our A Team drawing the higher rated ICEA Team.

So it all came down to the final round. Our A Team came up short against the San Diego A Team (who went undefeated) but our B Team beat the North County B Team and secured a three way tie for second place! There were also some outstanding individual performances by our members. Ararat Bagdasarian scored 3.5 out of 4 and raised his rating to 2064. Ethan Hsiao and Kaiwen Yu also posted plus scores of 3 out of 4 and Derek Li held held NM Alex Wang (2325) to a draw in round one to help preserve the win over the ICEA Team.

It was great to have a local team event again and hopefully there will be more. Many thanks to SCCF for coordinating (especially Irina Nizmutdihova), the San Diego Club for hosting and all our SGVCC parents who took everyone there! Check out the additional photos, standings and commentary at this link.