Congratulations to the following students who won at the 2026 Southern California State Scholastic Championship (also known as Superstates).

• WCM Tori Porat: 2026 Girls Champion and the official SoCal representative at the Haring Girls State Champions.
  
  

• Ararat Bagdasarian: 2026 K-8 Champion and the official SoCal representative at the Barber Middle School State Champions.
  
  

• Renae Chen: 2026 K-3 Champion and the official SoCal representative at the Ashley Elementary K-3 State Champions.

Mani is definitely on a roll! As GM Melik said in his post! 

He won the Blitz event of the prestigious Prague International Chess Festival by tying for first with an impressive 10/11 points! Congratulations to Mani!

Coach Melik has been working with him for more than 6 months, and the results are showing:

• His rating went from 1846 to 2176

• Earned bronze at the U10 2025 World Cadets Championship in Almaty, Kazakhstan

• He is currently #1 on the Age Under 10 list.

Photo credit to Chessbase India.

Registration is OPEN: Fill out the Google Form!

Get your FIDE Trainer Title by attending this official FIDE Trainer Seminar.

Click the link to get more information on:

• How to register.

• Schedule and lecturers.

• Possible titles and other important information.

Heartfelt congratulations to Padhya Saumil on his outstanding performance at the 17th Annual Southwest Class Championship! Scoring 5.5/9, his live FIDE rating surpassed 2300, earning him the FM title in the March 2026 rating list.

GM Melik has been coaching him for the past six months, and his hard work shows in the results.

Click the link to get more information on:

• Dates and daily schedule 

• How to register

• Topics covered

Congratulations to Coach GM Melik Khachiyan and the entire 2024 U.S. Women's Olympiad Team, who were named the recipients of the US Chess 2025 Outstanding Team Achievement Award. 

Read the announcement on US Chess' website.

Many thanks to Natalinel Green for featuring GM Melik in the October 2025 Coach of the Month article. Read the featured article here, and find out which game is featured as his best game of his career!