Young Stars May Training Session
Source: ChessBase
School is out in most of the country, and the chess world is back in full force. Tournaments are happening online and offline around the World, and our Young Stars are training hard to be prepared for them. The latest training session happened on May 24th and 25th via Zoom.
The Kasparov Chess Foundation (KCF) and the Saint Louis Chess Club have been running the very successful Young Stars – Team USA program since 2011. Team USA’s program has helped develop several American chess prodigies from across the country, including the likes of GM Jeffery Xiong and GM Sam Sevian. Team USA has been capped off with individualized training sessions with Kasparov’s coaching staff and special training sessions with Garry Kasparov himself.
The latest two-day session was conducted by Garry Kasparov with the assistance of FIDE Senior Trainer Michael Khodarkovsky. GM Dmitry Gurevich, coach of WCM Alice Lee, was also present.
The participants were:
- WCM Alice Lee, 11 years old. Gold Medal at the 2020 U12 World Online Girls Championships.
- NM Tanitoluwa Adewumi, 10 years old. Current youngest National Master in the country.
- FM Jason Liang, 14 years old. Jason is close to his IM title.
- IM Christopher Yoo, 14 years old. Gold Medal at the 2020 U16 World Online Championships.
- IM Abhimanyu Mishra, 11 years old. Trying to break Karjakin’s record of the youngest GM in history, “Abhi” has two GM-norms to his name already.
- GM Jonas Bjerre, 16 years old. Jonas is 2550 and seeking to cross the 2600 barrier soon.
Tanitoluwa “Tani” Adewumi showing how his powerful knight on d4 allowed him to defeat experienced IM Justin Sarkar at a recent over the board event.
Tani, a 10-year-old Nigerian refugee, recently made nationwide headlines for becoming one of the youngest masters of our sport. You can hear the exposé about him on NPR at the following link: NPR Article about Tani. | Photo: Kasparov Chess Foundation
Tani had the following to say about these two days: “I really liked the Kasparov lessons; I learned new ideas and new things. I got things to pick up in chess and outside of chess. I was happy to see Kasparov himself and when I was able to show my game it was a really cool experience. I learned a lot from the lessons.”
Jason Liang (presenting his game against IM Ippolito above) is an ambitious FM that certainly plays a lot! Fresh off the Missouri Grand Chess Championship, Jason will take only one day off after this training session before participating in the 9th Cherry Blossom Classic in Virginia.
Professional players train with modern technology, but also with the old format of books! | Photo: Kasparov Chess Foundation
Studying your classics is certainly important. Christopher Yoo holds the record for being the youngest player to defeat a 2700+ player in tournament play when he toppled Le Quang Liem at the 2019 Bay Area International.
Young Alice Lee had a fascinating position during one of the games that she presented to the class:
In Talukdar-Lee, White has a tough choice.
As Kasparov pointed out, only the brilliant 55. Bd5!! is a study-like win in this position. The move chosen in the game, 55.Kf6? actually loses!
These Young Stars are immediately putting their new knowledge in practice in tough tournaments: Jason Liang is participating in the Cherry Blossom Classic, Christopher Yoo in the GM-Norm section of the Charlotte Chess Invitational, Jonas Bjerre in the 8th Cattolica Festival.
The Young Stars Program has open admission for talented kids from all over the World to apply to this elite program. Candidates may apply by submitting the application found here: KCF YoungStars Application. The program is open for talented players that are nine (9) years of age on January 1, 2021, and not older than thirteen (13) years of age on January 1, 2021.
