As we begin a new year, I thank our players, coaches, chess parents, chess tournament organizers, tournament directors, Regional Directors and all who support and do incredible things for the benefit of our players and the game we love.
Our focus now turns to the events we are organizing during the first half of 2023, and I am happy to see that we have so many! Our Regional Directors have already scheduled many of their Championships, and UTRGV will be hosting the Texas Women/Girls Championship. During the first weekend in March, we hold the premier Texas Scholastic event of the year, Super State, at the McAllen Convention Center. During the same weekend, the Arlington Chess Club will be hosting the Senior Open in Euless! In late May, during Memorial Day weekend, the Dallas Chess Club is, once again, hosting the Texas Championship and Amateur. For these and other Texas events please go to the TCA website, the TCA Facebook page, and the US Chess TLA listing of Texas events.
Speaking of the TCA Facebook page, we have a new Admin, Deborah Shafer, and she is doing a great job, keeping the page up to date with tournament announcements and articles submitted for publication. If you have not done so, please visit and “like” the page.
Here is more information about the Texas Scholastic Chess Championships (Super State) that will be held in McAllen, March 3-5: We will be awarding $6,200 in college scholarships, and, of course, hundreds of trophies will be awarded, including to players who finish in the top 20 in each section, the top 15 teams in each section, and to all players not finishing in the top 20 who achieve a “plus score” of at least 4.0 points. There will also be larger trophies awarded to the team Grand Champions. All players will receive commemorative event medals! The winners of the High School Championship, the Middle School Championship, and the Elementary School Championship sections will qualify to represent Texas at the US Chess National Invitational events (Denker, Barber and Rockefeller). The top girl in each of those sections will play in a round-robin event, to be scheduled later, with the top girl in each of the same sections of the 2022 Texas Girls Championship that was held in Brownville and organized by UTRGV, to determine our Texas State representative at the Haring National Tournament of Girls State Champions. For additional information, registration, and list of players registered, please go to:
https://www.kingregistration.com/backend/event/tcasuperstate2023
State, Regionals and club events are not the only chess tournaments in Texas. On April 21-23, we will be hosting the US Chess National Middle School Chess Championship at the Kalahari Resort and Convention Center in Round Rock! Please visit the US Chess website for more information. This past December, many of our players participated in the 2022 National K-12 Grades Championships! At that event, Eric Chang Liu became the 7th grade National Champion with 6.5 points in seven rounds! In addition to Eric, other Texas players performed superbly, including Sharvesh Deviprasath (2nd place in 11th grade), Vaseegaran Nandhakumar (tied for 2nd place, 4th on tie-breaks, 8th grade), Neil Lad (tied for 2nd, 6th on tie-breaks, 7th grade), Vijay Srinivas Anandh (tied for 2nd, 4th place on tie-breaks, 5th grade), Anish Krishnan (tied for 8th place, 5th grade), Oscar Yihang Zhang (tied for 8th place, 3rd grade), Aadhya Jay Rajagopalan (tied for 3rd, 5th place on tie-breaks, 2nd grade). We congratulate them and the many Texas players who participated in this national event that had almost 2500 players!
Once again, my thanks to all the players, coaches, parents, tournament organizers, and tournament directors who make this happen. I am looking forward to a very exciting year!
May the New Year be a blessed and prosperous period for all of us.
Franc Guadalupe
President, Texas Chess Association
