Chess by Daniel Hung

Very proud of my student Advaith for placing first at the Texas Junior Invitational, earning himself the right to represent Texas at the National Invitational!

This time I am spotlighting my student Nameer, who recently placed first at the RRISD Tournament Championship Section, increasing his USCF rating to over 1,200! I think this 1,200 threshold is important, because there are so many kids 1,000 to 1,100 rated in the top section of most of these scholastic tournaments, but it's hard to separate oneself from this group as kids at this level don't blunder as much as lower rated kids. Often times it's more a statistical game, having 50% chance of winning/losing to someone around your rating, thus it's hard to place first in these sort of tournaments, where the chance of placing first is like flipping a coin 5 times and needing to get head each time. Nameer has the highest online rapid rating of all my students, so his recent in person tournament success was long overdue. Actually, Nameer's first USCF was 1184, which while not common, is not entirely unheard of as the student placing first in a tournament will increase his/her rating and if it's someone's first tournament, that first rating can be over 1,000 as was the case here. However, most if not all his opponents in his first tournament were unrated, so his initial rating didn't reflect his actual strength and over time his rating dropped to a low of 700ish, at which point he started learning from me. Each student has different problems and Nameer's was he was trying to imitate the Grandmasters, whose games he follow. I have to tell students that they can't play like the Grandmasters right now, because most GM games end in draws and they're often expecting to draw, so they commonly exchange their pieces and head into the endgame for a draw. However, kids at this level don't draw very often and are unable to draw an equal or sometimes even winning endgame against more experienced and higher rated opponents, so that was an area that had to be corrected with Nameer as well as some other students. The next area is on the importance of tactics. While many GM games focus more on playing positionally, at this level, excluding kids just blundering materials, most games are decided based on tactics. Even though some students, such as Nameer may prefer positional chess over tactical chess, I emphasized for all students that they can't avoid tactics, especially at this level, and one can't hope to win by being passive. Lastly, it's the openings. While many kids might want to imitate the GMs by playing their openings, oftentimes those openings require countless hours of studying to learn and memorize, thus it's better to choose openings that match your style as well as time commitment, for example avoiding the Open Sicilian, which Nameer has been doing a good job of. These are the three phases of a chess game, but there's another intangible, the psychological aspect that sometimes hold a student back. I had to work with him and some other students on developing their confidence and conquering their fear, so they their full potential in chess can shine through. Like most of my middle school students, Nameer's time for chess is more limited than before, so it'll be up to him and his determination how much further he'll get in chess. I strongly believe he can already currently get to at least 1,400 USCF and hopefully one day he can truly imitate the GMs as he did when he first started out in chess.

Congratulations to my students for their success at the Paragon Tournament yesterday. Out of the 6 scholastic sections, my students placed First in the lowest rated (K3 U400- Sourya) and highest rated sections (K12 Elite - Jake). Nash earned a trophy in K5U600. Besides team trophies, a number of students also earned medals: Matteo, Shlok, Spruha, Ayush, Hiya, Arjun, and Advaith. A number of students were among the lowest rated in their sections, so didn't place or earn a medal as expected, but I always believe that they and all my other students can learn from their mistakes in this tournament to do better in future tournaments.

Paragon Prep April 2025 Scholastic - Pairings and Wall Charts and Standings - Austin Chess Tournaments Round by Round pairings for the 2025 Paragon April Scholastic chess tournament at Paragon Prep on 4/12/2025. Will be updated with final results after the event.