2008 World Youth Chess Championships

From the Southlake Times Star: Eubanks student makes second trip to world chess championship By Christina Rowland/ Staff Writer (Created: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:02 PM CDT) Sarah Chiang has come a long way since she took up chess four years ago. The 11-year-old leaves Friday morning for Vietnam and her second appearance at the World chess Championships. Sarah was originally taught the game by her father and shortly after joined a Southlake city-wide chess club to perfect her skills. When asked about how she felt about her upcoming matches she said, “It’s going to be hard, I think it is hard because you can’t really master a game of chess all the way through because there is always something new.” To get ready for the upcoming tournament, Sarah studies her openings.According to Christine Chiang, Sarah’s mom, the game of chess is broken up into three parts openings, middle games, and end games. “(In openings) all the pieces are still on the board, so you plan the best place to put your pieces,” Christine said. Sarah has also been practicing tactics, which includes tricks and traps. Her mom said she practices 50 to 100 of these a day. Sarah also works with a chess coach. “He usually teaches us middle game strategy and what you think and the ideas behind it,” Sarah said. Sarah leaves Friday for Vietnam and the tournament runs from Oct.17 through Nov.1 with only one day of rest. When she gets there, her typical schedule will be to wake up, eat breakfast, spend a half-hour working with her coach, play a match, go over match with her coach, eat dinner and go to bed. The matches start at 3 p.m. everyday and can last hours. Christine explained that each player gets 90 minutes to play, but after each move they make, they hit the clock on their side and it adds 30 seconds back to the clock. “Sometimes in a game you get stuck and use up a lot of time,” Sarah said. A player wins a chess game if they checkmate the other player, if one player runs out of time, or if there is a draw, which means that there are no pieces on the board to make a move with. “Chess is a battle of ideas across the board,” Sarah said. “Every single game is different and there are always new challenges to meet and it’s always interesting.” There are 11 rounds in the tournament and each player acquires points in the rounds.. A win earns one point, a draw earns half a point, and a loss gets zero points. There are 68 girls in Sarah’s category representing 39 different countries. Sarah represents the U.S. Team under 12. Last year, she placed second in the world and earned the title Woman Candidate Master. She had eight and a half points.“(This year) I just hope I don’t do bad. It would be wonderful if I got first but I don’t know,” Sarah said. Sarah will be joined in Vietnam by her little brother, Jonathan, who also plays on the U.S. Chess team under 8 division.