Strategy, initiative or maneuver are just some chess words that are used in business language and everyday life. As students of the game begin to study chess books, they come across terms like positional advantage, interference, prophylaxis etc. and they become more proficient in the English language.
Chess does not only give an opportunity to enrich one’s vocabulary as well. It is a language in itself. If two chess players from different nationalities played a game, they would have no trouble understanding each other since they both speak the language of chess.
A chess tournament is not just a sporting event. Be it conducted in a physical place or virtual online, it is a fertile ground for exchanging chess ideas, thoughts and opinions. This social environment creates a great learning opportunity for the student to communicate effectively and socialize with others.
Every Sunday, SCA Chess Academy from Shanghai hosts a series of online U15 rapid tournaments on www.chesskid.com. Players collect Grand Prix points from each tournament they participate in.
The 3rd and last leg of SCA’s Summer Season Grand Prix was held last August 30. Oscar Yasunaga won 1st place. William Harter of France was 2nd and Donald Wen was 3rd.
A total of 123 juniors from around the world participated in the 3 month long tournament series. After the intense battles and the dust settles, Oscar Yasunaga (SCA) emerged as the overall Grand Prix Summer Season winner. Donald Wen (SCA) bagged second place honors, Alzadjali Abdul Rahman of Oman was third and Julia Allen of the Philippines was fourth. William Harter, Kouroush Yazdani, Michael Jiang, Ethan Zhu, Runjie Gao, Lucas Granucci, Eva Han, Fateme Yazdani, Evan Alpert, Titian Wu, David Gong, Derek Zhang, Roger Bao, William Wang, Josef Troy Gomez and Jeffrey Chen round up the top 20.
22. g5! hxg5 23.h6 Qxa3 [Last hope in a lost position]
[23.. g6 24. Nxg6 fxg6 25. Qxe6+ Kh8 26. Qxd5+-]
24.hxg7 [24.bxa3?? Nc3 and Black managed to survive the worst; 24. Ng6!! Threatening mate in 1 24..fxg6 25. Qxe6+ Rf7 26. bxa3+-]
24.. Kxg7 25. Qh5 Rh8 [25..Kf6 26. bxa3+-] 26. Qxf7# 1-0
25. h4! [25.Rxa8 Rxa8 26.h4 is even stronger]
25…Qg6 [25…Rxa1 26. hxg5 Rxe1+ 27.Kh2 Rf7 28.Qxb4+-]
26. Qxd5+?? [26.Rxa8 Rxa8 27, Qxd5++-]
26…Rf7?? [26..Qf7 27. Qxb5 Qf2+ 28. Kh2 Qxh4+ 29. Kg1 Qf2+-]
27.Rxa8+ 1-0
29. d5! Qg5 30. Qd4 [30.h4+-]
30…Kg7 31.Re5 Black’s queen got trapped. The rest is easy.
31…Qxe5 32. Qxe5 Kh7 33.Qxf6 Rg8
34. Qxf7+ Rg7 35. Qxg7# 1-0
Congratulations to all!
However hopeless the situation appears to be, there yet always exists the possibility of putting up a stubborn resistance. – Paul Keres
by AGM Giovanni Dy, IM Vitaly Samolin
