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| 11-year old Sam Sevian with coach IM Andranik Matikozyan. |
A pair of popular Bay Area juniors traveled to downtown Los Angeles for the
20th Metropolitan Chess FIDE Invitational. Despite stiff veteran competition and long odds that became longer at the last minute,
they shared first place and each earned an IM norm. Congratulations to 15-year old FM
Yian Liou and 11-year old NM
Sam Sevian!
The 10-player round-robin (
all-play-all) featured three International Masters, four foreign players (
including two of the IMs), plus a trio of talented juniors. The competitors clashed in a grueling schedule of nine rounds over five days, each game taking up to six hours. Originally, the organizer
Ankit Gupta of
Metropolitan Chess planned for a score of +4 (6.5/9) to earn one of the three
norms required for the IM title. Unfortunately, one foreign player was replaced by a lower rated one on short notice, thereby increasing the norm threshold to a very demanding +5 (7.0/9).
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| FM Yian Liou |
Yian and Sam squared off right away in round 1, and after some adventures, they agreed to a draw. After that, their results mirrored each other for much of the tournament. Both found a way to score points with either color, and both won three games in a row. Indeed, Yian and Sam finished with the same result (
win or draw) against six of the other eight participants. Both drew with top seed IM
Andranik Matikozyan, who is Sam's personal coach.
Most importantly, neither lost a game. At the end, they easily clinched norms by splitting the point in the last round.
For my former student Yian, this was a well-deserved
first IM norm after some close calls.
Bravo! Local whizkid Sam picked up his
second norm of the summer, further confirming the
#1 FIDE rating in the World for U-12, To qualify for the IM title, Yian and Sam will need to complete three norms and raise their FIDE rating to 2400. While both
broke 2400 USCF this week, their international ratings lag behind at about 2350 and 2320, respectively.
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| Kesav Viswanadha |
In case anyone wonders, the
youngest International Master in history appears to be
Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine at 11 years and 11 months. Karjakin then became the
youngest Grandmaster ever at 12 years and 7 months, and now is
ranked #6 in the world.
A third Bay Area junior also left his mark. Kudos to 12-year old
Kesav Viswanadha for fighting hard against challenging opposition. After a slow start, he finished with 50% over the last five rounds. Kesav won one game--against second seed IM
Zhanibek Amanov of Kazakhstan. No doubt, he gained tons of experience in addition to a few rating points.
Times change! At the end of 2012, more than 30 NorCal juniors are rated, with 3 above 2300 and another 13 over 2000. On average, a player's USCF rating exceeds the FIDE by 50 to 100 points. Since FIDE rates only slow games, someone who performs better at G/45 or G/60 will be ranked lower. Indeed, many masters believe the FIDE rating holds more meaning than USCF, in part because faster games do not count. 
Thirteen Bay Area juniors and their parents made the trek to Florida. The trip proved successful, and the local delegation brought home 11 trophies: six top 10 places, two honorable mentions, two rating class prizes and one big team trophy. 
Just have fun, play games, a lot if you want, read chess books. That’s the way I went about it in those years. It was never really a system. I worked from the age of nine with a trainer once a week but I would also just sit at home with the board and some chess books. And I think it’s a healthy approach not to study the openings too much. I think studying the openings is useful but getting an understanding of the game, learning tactics is more important. And the way I did it back in those days is that I read books on some openings, not necessarily the entire book but some things that interested me. Then the next week I’d go to a tournament and try it out and see how it goes.
