{"id":1391,"date":"2012-04-22T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T18:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1391"},"modified":"2012-04-23T09:16:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T17:16:11","slug":"whats-with-all-these-middle-schoolers-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1391","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s With All These Middle-Schoolers Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I know, I already posted earlier this week about Elizabeth Spiegel and the awesome job that she has done with I.S. 318 in Brooklyn. But that was before I understood the full scope of their accomplishment. I only realized it when I looked at her web page this morning, specifically <a href=\"http:\/\/lizzyknowsall.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/rachel-maddow.html\">this post<\/a> with a clip from the Rachel Maddow Show that calls their team &#8220;The Best New Thing in the World Today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You see, they&#8217;re a <em>middle school<\/em>. And they just won the U.S. <em>high-school<\/em> chess championship!<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard enough to be national champion at anything. (I can now speak from experience, having <a href=\"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=1383\">fallen just short<\/a> yesterday in my own quest to be on a champion team.) But to be champions in a higher division than you technically qualify for! It would be as if my U.S. Amateur Team team (maximum rating &lt; 2200) entered in the U.S. Chess League (maximum rating &lt; 2400, with certain loopholes) and won.<\/p>\n<p>Then I went to Michael Aigner&#8217;s blog, and read <a href=\"http:\/\/fpawn.blogspot.com\/2012\/04\/good-luck-at-calchess-scholastics.html\">this entry<\/a> about the CalChess scholastics (the individual state championship), which are also taking place on this busy weekend. In that tournament, too, the middle-schoolers rule! Michael listed the top pre-registered players in the high-school section:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Colin Chow 2053 (now 2117 after beating two IMs in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201204086552.1\">Reno<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Joshua Cao 2050<\/li>\n<li>Paul Richter 2048 (was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201004182991.1\">2010 CalChess High School<\/a> co-champion)<\/li>\n<li>Ted Xiao 2033<\/li>\n<li>James Kwok 2009<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Compare them to the top pre-registered players in the middle-school section.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NM Cameron Wheeler 2126 (now 2204 after beating three masters in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201204086552.1\">Reno<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Vignesh Panchanatham 2103<\/li>\n<li>Neel Apte 2093 (defending champ and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201108022841\">2011 Barber<\/a> rep)<\/li>\n<li>Udit Iyengar 2069<\/li>\n<li>Siddharth Banik 2051<\/li>\n<li>Allan Beilin 2044<\/li>\n<li>FM Tanuj Vasudeva 2014<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think you&#8217;ll agree that the middle-school tournament shapes up to be tougher than the high-school tournament.<\/p>\n<p>What gives? Well, I think there is a negative, cynical explanation and a positive one. The negative explanation, which Rachel Maddow didn&#8217;t know about, is that the very top high-school players don&#8217;t actually play in high-school tournaments. They&#8217;re good enough to play in big, important adult tournaments, and the high-school state or even national championships appear (to them) insignificant by comparison.<\/p>\n<p>Like Michael, I wish I could slap a little sense into their heads. I repeat, most people do not get any chances to be state champion or national champion at <em>anything, ever<\/em>. Such chances are not to be thrown away lightly. And to the outside world, high-school national champion actually sounds better and more meaningful than, say, earning an IM norm in Budapest. That&#8217;s why the Rachel Maddow Show features the winners of the high school national championship, but not the winners of the aforesaid IM norms.<\/p>\n<p>The positive explanation for this middle-school dominance is that we have an incredible surge of talent at the middle-school level, at least in places like Brooklyn and San Jose. I can&#8217;t wait to see this talent competing at the high-school level and then on the national and international chess scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I know, I already posted earlier this week about Elizabeth Spiegel and the awesome job that she has done with I.S. 318 in Brooklyn. But that was before I understood the full scope of their accomplishment. I only realized it when I looked at her web page this morning, specifically this post with a clip [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1363,25,12,31],"tags":[2181,2169,618,2180,109],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-people","category-tournaments","category-us-chess-league","tag-awesomeness","tag-elizabeth-spiegel","tag-michael-aigner","tag-rachel-maddow","tag-scholastic-chess"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1394,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions\/1394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}