As a trainer I am always proud (probably more than when I do it myself) when my students achieve good results. The last week in Chicago was a great one for my student Ashritha Eswaran who won the All Girls National under twelve with the excellent score 5.5/6. Ashritha is now USA champion and will represent her country at the World Youth Championship in Slovenia this October. Kudos to her main coach, the fabulous Ted Castro from the Norcal House of Chess who not only produces a huge mass of champions but have also organized the Berkeley International at the beginning of the year!

In Europe a former student of mine from my stay in Greece- Haralambos Tsakiris won the FIDE World Amateur Championship and is now a FM. I am sure that his current trainer Dejan Antic is also very proud of him, as well as with the player who took bronze- George Kafetzis. On the top of this WGM Iva Videnova whom I started helping recently was more than impressive at the Bulgarian National Championship which she has just won with 8/9.

Thank you Plamena for the picture! Ivan Cheparinov was also incredibly convincing with the amazing 10/11score! Ivan is on his way of returning the 2700+ membership ticket. I will soon write more about the Bulgarian championships which were really great. Enjoy your weekend!