America's newest chess master

[Foxaèr]

10-Year-Old Tanitoluwa Adewumi
npr.org

Tanitoluwa Adewumi, a 10-year-old in New York, just became the country's newest national chess master.

At the Fairfield County Chess Club Championship tournament in Connecticut on May 1, Adewumi won all four of his matches, bumping his chess rating up to 2223 and making him the 28th youngest person to become a chess master, according to U.S. Chess.

[Fake Messiah]

Well, congratulations. Chess masters frequently seem to be very young. Now J. J. Abrams can finally put a chess master in new SW or Star Trek or Marvel movie. Like this sentence from an article about Magnus Carlsen on Wikipedia:

Film director J. J. Abrams offered Carlsen a role in the movie Star Trek Into Darkness as "a chess player from the future", but Carlsen was unable to get a work permit in time for shooting.

So maybe Tanitoluwa can now play "a chess player from the future" considering he doesn't need a green card.

[HappySkeptic]

I love chess. I also suck at it. It takes an amazing memory with fast recall of opening theory and tactical patterns, and the ability to calculate long lines without losing an internal image of the board.

[vulcanlogician]

National Master means this kid could beat me in every circumstance. But (just so folks know) there are titles that exceed NM. A higher title is "international master (IM)" and finally "grandmaster (GM)." Grandmaster means that even if the person who holds the title is heavily drunk, he will beat any of us at chess. That might not be the official definition of GM, but it gets the point across.

Like Happy Skeptic, I also suck at chess. I'm too impatient, and too frustrated when I get into difficult positions. Like Skeptic says, it takes memorization and calculation... but patience is one of those virtues too.

That's why chess is such a deep and awesome game. It teaches you patience... kinda like jazz "teaches you to listen." Chess teaches you to be patient and plan.

I love chess.

[HappySkeptic]

National Master means this kid could beat me in every circumstance. But (just so folks know) there are titles that exceed NM. A higher title is "international master (IM)" and finally "grandmaster (GM)." Grandmaster means that even if the person who holds the title is heavily drunk, he will beat any of us at chess. That might not be the official definition of GM, but it gets the point across.

Like Happy Skeptic, I also suck at chess. I'm too impatient, and too frustrated when I get into difficult positions. Like Skeptic says, it takes memorization and calculation... but patience is one of those virtues too.

That's why chess is such a deep and awesome game. It teaches you patience... kinda like jazz "teaches you to listen." Chess teaches you to be patient and plan.

I love chess.

I watched Magnus Carlsen (the current world champion) play some online blitz tournaments under the name "Dr Drunkenstein".  I'm not sure how many drinks he had, but he usually won.

I play 10 minutes/side games online, and a single drink is enough to reduce my performance, even though I don't feel any different.  I also suck before having a morning coffee. 

Sometimes I lose because I'm too impatient.  Other times, I take too much time and get flagged.  Other times, my concentration wanes, and I forget to do the checks for defense when I'm engaged in an attack, or don't bother to calculate that an opponents sacrifice is an actual danger to me.  Sometimes I play too passively.  It is just as bad to jump forward with an attack on a wing and prayer (though not as bad in short time controls, where aggressiveness usually pays)

It is addicting, and frustrating.

[arewethereyet]

I'm pretty sure that in high school I held the record for the most losses in chess.

We had a lot of free time between classes which was spent in The Commons, which doubled as our lunch room, there was a year or two when playing chess became the thing to do to pass the time. I know the directions the pieces move and I understand the rules of the game...the strategy...not so much.

[vulcanlogician]

I play 10 minutes/side games online, and a single drink is enough to reduce my performance, even though I don't feel any different.  I also suck before having a morning coffee. 

I 100% feel that.

[Brian37]

I'm pretty sure that in high school I held the record for the most losses in chess.

We had a lot of free time between classes which was spent in The Commons, which doubled as our lunch room, there was a year or two when playing chess became the thing to do to pass the time.  I know the directions the pieces move and I understand the rules of the game...the strategy...not so much.

I wasn't good at chess myself. Like you, I could only tell you how the peices were allowed to move, but strategy, I was never good at that. I'd always simply try to pick a peice off just to get rid of it, but part of the strategy, is knowing someone is baiting you into a trap to pick you off. And that can, for the experts get 10, 20, 30 moves deep thinking ahead. People have forever written books about that game. 

I was a little bit better at backgammon, but even then, my mom beat me 8 times out of 10.

[arewethereyet]

I'm pretty sure that in high school I held the record for the most losses in chess.

We had a lot of free time between classes which was spent in The Commons, which doubled as our lunch room, there was a year or two when playing chess became the thing to do to pass the time.  I know the directions the pieces move and I understand the rules of the game...the strategy...not so much.

I wasn't good at chess myself. Like you, I could only tell you how the peices were allowed to move, but strategy, I was never good at that. I'd always simply try to pick a peice off just to get rid of it, but part of the strategy, is knowing someone is baiting you into a trap to pick you off. And that can, for the experts get 10, 20, 30 moves deep thinking ahead. People have forever written books about that game. 

I was a little bit better at backgammon, but even then, my mom beat me 8 times out of 10.

Though I haven't played in years, I was pretty good at backgammon.

A guy I used to tend bar with taught me how to play.

[Brian37]

I wasn't good at chess myself. Like you, I could only tell you how the peices were allowed to move, but strategy, I was never good at that. I'd always simply try to pick a peice off just to get rid of it, but part of the strategy, is knowing someone is baiting you into a trap to pick you off. And that can, for the experts get 10, 20, 30 moves deep thinking ahead. People have forever written books about that game. 

I was a little bit better at backgammon, but even then, my mom beat me 8 times out of 10.

Though I haven't played in years, I was pretty good at backgammon.

A guy I used to tend bar with taught me how to play.

I have forgotten how to play, since I stopped playing after I moved out of my childhood home, since my mom was pretty much the only person I knew who played it. But as much as I love my mom, she was a poor sport, she hated losing. We'd have a several game marathon of backgammon, and then I would finally beat her one rare time, then she would get up in a huff and say, "I don't to play anymore."

Backgammon, unlike chess has a lot more luck in it too, because you are still at the mercy of the dice. You still have to use strategy to get your peices home, and block your rival from advancing, but double 6's at the right time depending, can be devistating to your rival. My mom always looked like a steaming teapot when we'd play and the dice were on my side.

---

I love chess.  I also suck at it.  It takes an amazing memory with fast recall of opening theory and tactical patterns, and the ability to calculate long lines without losing an internal image of the board.

Considering that chess has amost virtually limitless combinations to get to a checkmate win, the only thing I can think of that is more complex other than evolution, would be computer code. It certianly is a game of thinking and planning and countless strategies. 

I used to be able to recite all the words of every Pat Benatar Song and tell you which song was on what album and side. But that won't do shit in a game like chess. It truely is a humbling game for those who suck at it. 

Kudos to this kid. Pretty sure this kid isn't scared if his opponant says, "Hit me with your best shot." I am sure this kid  cracks his knucles and blows on his fists and thinks, "Oh yea, bring it on."

Just looking at his picture, I am sure that kid doesn't break a sweat. Just like my X wife who has a MASTERS and PHD in microbilogy, I look at this kid and think, "whish I had your brains."