Meet Carissa Yip – the Youngest Female Chess Master!
Carissa Yip, 11, of Andover, Massachusetts beat a master chess player last month and earned her title while also creating an all time record as the youngest female chess master. In 2013, she became youngest American to reach expert level! Carissa began playing chess at age six and is now ranked 50th best female chess player in the country by United States Chess Federation.
She became the youngest to ever to defeat a grandmaster, Alexander Ivanov, during the New England Open in 2014!
Carissa said she loves chess because it is a challenging game, according to the Boston Globe.
‘I prefer to play with someone who’s actually good,’ she said. But sometimes her opponents do not always take the loss in stride. Carissa said during one of her first tournaments, she beat a competitor when she was just seven years old and that opponent just showed his displeasure and said that he did not like playing against kids.
That shows how deep it can hurt people to be humiliated by children like Carissa who are barely out of their milk teeth! Thank goodness I did not have such a treatment meted out by anyone so small… Atleast not yet 🙂
The Author Kish Kumar is a coach at Golden Chess Centre and is passionate about teaching Chess to beginners, intermediate level and advanced players.
Explaining the hiatus in articles and posts here –
This post today aims in Explaining the hiatus in my articles and thoughts here. Many of you may be wondering why the site suddenly went static and stopped moving some 6-8 months ago. The truth is that it was hacked. Not this site but another sub-domain that was parked inside the same web host account of this one and it took a lot of time to clean up and re-host that site on a dedicated web-space of its own, to prevent any similar collisions in future.
Then after that was taken care of we decided to revamp the looks of our site and this was done assuming that it would be a breeze! Nothing could have been further than the truth. It took some inordinate amount of time to configure properly and to compound our problems it we had exams to contend with.
Sometimes we felt that this was passe what with our priorities looming large and our passion getting a hit on account of being torn in the urgent-and-important-quadrant of priorities. However we sat tight and waited till everything settled down to a minimum.
Our lessons:
When intuition is strong, doors open automatically. Keeping a balanced mind amidst problems will sometimes just be enough. There is nothing you can do about things beyond your control. If the flame of passion is strong you will eventually find a way to do it. If it is positive it is a good thing. If not, God bless you…!
Always give priority to long term commitments. And do not plan anything that is long term, without a really long and hard think about it. If you are confused ask friends. Never beats getting friendly advice. Human mind is frail and weak. It will succumb easily to temptations and distractions. If that is the case I suggest not taking up anything that will demand a long dedicated effort on your part.
Anyways, the end result is that we are back, and we are good! We are rarin’ to go and to start updating you with the latest in the world of chess, as and when they happen!
The Author Kish Kumar is a coach at Golden Chess Centre and is passionate about teaching Chess to beginners, intermediate level and advanced players.
Exam fear – Beat exam stress and score (last-minute mashup?)
It is natural to feel stressed and nervous.
Don’t worry it will pass.
Here are my suggestions to overcome these jitters and to fulfill some study schedules.
Action plan to get the demons out of your mind:
Have a simple plan of study. Keep it simple. Simply list down all major headings and sub-headings of a particular lesson on a sheet of paper. I call this the stock-taking method. You will be ticking off whatever is completed.
Tick for those topics that you studied reasonably well.
Circle where you also practiced and are quite confident.
Underline for those where you need revision and repetition.
Rules for the day’s schedule
First thing in the morning, plan targets for the day. For this planning, spend 5 minutes maximum.
Take a short target for next 30 minutes, one specific ‘heading’.
Don’t think beyond 30 minutes at a time.
To gain maximum out of the above 3 pointers you have to follow some recommendations.
Take small break every 45 minutes. Stretch lightly during the breaks.
Maintain a regular sleep pattern. Leave study at least 45 minutes before sleep. During these 45 minutes, wash your face, settle down, breathe deeply, close your eyes, relax your mind, and allow yourself to drift to sleep.
Unless really necessary, avoid tea and coffee. They may lengthen your waking time. But they can also disturb your sleep, reduce grasping capacity of brain, and make you feel tired when you wake up next day. Instead of tea or coffee, have lemon water or green tea with sugar.
Avoid TV, films, chatting, long phone calls, social media unless absolutely necessary. These will tire your brain. Speak less with others. Allow your brain to spend time with yourself.
Play music, or sing, or dance, or simply meditate during the short study breaks.
The best advice I can give to CBSE chess students is to keep the learning schedules consistent throughout the year. Prepare well when you have time, because no one knows how tomorrow is going to be.
It is better to start sharpening the sword during peace, rather than after a battle has begun, as an old story says.
Education will not give what you want. It is what you want that will give what you want.
Exam fear – Beat exam stress and score
Exam fear is a very common phenomenon among children, and it has a avalanche effect, there is no doubt about it. But, have the powers to be, ever tried to think about how to remove the fear & make exam a fun task rather than a jittery one? How to make them capable to overcome their fear of exams and especially on weak students to make them stronger?
Share your thoughts…
The author Kish Kumar is a trainer and Coach at Golden Chess Centre. He can be contacted on his Facebook page.
How to train in Chess effectively – 3 Basic Books and 5 Tips For Beginners up to 1500 ELO
Some recommendations on how to train in Chess effectively and on training methods and resources. If you are a novice and like to improve through diligent training and perseverance then this post is just an appetizer. There is no such thing as “the best advice” for chess improvement as everyone has different requirements and circumstances that make their learning unique.
The most effective way of training in your chess is by addressing your weaknesses, not strengthening your positive skills.
However, having said that, here are some general tips for you that may work for most of the beginners and post-beginners.
At least you cannot go wrong knowing how to train in chess
Practice Tactics positions DAILY
I recommend the following books:
600 plus winning chess themes and tactics by V. Subramanian‘,
as good training material to start with (of course with a good Coach to explain what is happening).
How to train in chess Tactics?
When working through puzzles on Chess Tactics for beginners, I suggest working through the specific themes at a time.
By progressing thematically, you will slowly build the pattern recognition database in your head that is needed to recognize the tactical elements when they appear in your games.
Random tactics will appear in your games, obviously, and only by constant familiarity with the tactical elements and factors can one get to identify the tactics satisfactorily.
That is why tactical position-solving should initially be theme-based.
Solutions given may not always be the best or the only correct ones, but they roughly describe the theme and pass the crux of the message.
How to train in chess visualization?
Trying to visualize the chess analysis will improve your tactics while imprinting the ideas in the brain, will serve as an absolute foundation of your chess.
Don’t memorize the answers but memorize the thought process.
It is not enough to go through the problems and understand the solutions, but it is necessary to go through them regularly until the solution is recognized within a few seconds without any complex calculations…
To put it more practically... treat them as your math multiplication tables and then see how you do complex numerical mathematics… in other words, you compare your game results before and after!
5 Tips on how to train in chess
It is better to train regularly, for a duration that is fixed for an individual daily schedule.
Start with as low as 15 minutes a day – make it a daily RITUAL.
Take stock daily. Set new goals for the next ‘weekly report’.
It is advisable to take time to review the past performance without fail.
Avoid excuses ‘I will catch up at the weekend!’ etc.
For you to grow in chess, get out of your comfort zone.
You will feel awkward and uncomfortable doing new things the first time.
If it’s worth doing for your chess growth, even doing it poorly until you get a feel for it is rewarding by itself.
Here are the 5 tips on how to train in chess so that you climb steadily and surely.
Try to create a habit of chess workout daily. Say, solving 15 tactical puzzles in the morning before you go to school (that’s what I recommend my students). It doesn’t matter if it is just a small start. Being regular guarantees progress.
Try to use your analytical brain rather than just checking the solutions when the position is difficult to solve.
Give your brain time to think.
Minimize distractions and remain focused while you are working on the tactics positions.
It’s not about winning, it’s about learning. If you did not learn you merely wasted your time.
Using the Chess Informants as a way to hack up your learning and thereby increasing your strength.
Read this: Chess Informant – the esoteric art of learning (hacking your chess brain).
8 Year old CEO woos security experts in Delhi, and how!
8 year old CEO woos security experts with wit and aplomb. Barely out of his milk teeth, this kid knows what it is like to be a CEO and also has his head clear on what he wants to become. No wonder he was invited to speak at the Ground zero summit in Delhi in November.
And since he could not reach for the Mic he was made to sit on a chair thereby being aptly named as the ‘Chair person’ of the event! Meet Reuben Abhishai Paul – Cyber Security expert and CEO of his gaming company called Prudent Games.
His other interests are Kung Fu, Gymnastics, Swimming and Music.
His company creates educational apps for children, combining knowledge and fun in a way that keeps children interested and involved. One of the applications by Prudent Games teaches children how to create strong and secured passwords. Another application teaches the basics of Brute Force technique to children, which is a popular method of hacking.
His presentation, titled: “Developing ROOt-Kidz: The future of Cyber Security” was about the importance of cyber security, and why parents should learn to implement and teach their children basic cyber security paradigms for keeping their computers and laptops safe.
Demonstrating his skills and knowledge, he displayed to the the audience how easy it is to hack into any website or computer using ‘click jacking’ and ‘Java applet’ attacks.
Later, fielding questions from the media like a pro, Reuben explained that it all started a year-and-a-half ago.”My father trains people in the area of software development and cyber security, and I used to be listening in and one day when he was on a business call and seemed to have forgotten some terms, and I prompted him from back. He then began training me.”
But there’s much more to Reuben than gaming or cyber security – at the age of two, he was crowned America’s ‘Most Beautiful Baby’. ‘RAPster’, as his friends call him, because his name forms the acronym RAP.
Watch 8 year old CEO Reuben Paul speak amidst experts like a Pro!
Hi friends, lets look at some Tactics from the 41st Chess Olympiad.
Tactics from the 41st Chess Olympiad
This position comes from the game WGM Melanie Ohme of Germany (2301) vs WGM Olga Girya of Russia (2484), Round 4 of the 41st Chess Olympiad, played in Norway.
White to move.
The tactics puzzle is at move 37. White to move.
Black has just played 36. …Rh2. It appears as though Blacks pieces are all swarming over the white monarch and the attack by black might just come through. Right?
Look again. The Black King is also not a sleeping beauty rather looks like a sitting duck. The question is – how can White use that to his advantage?
The first thing to do is to lay the position on a real chess board.
Do not try solving it on the PC as you will be missing on the spatial aspects of chess training.
Moreover if the position is not solvable in the first two minutes then stop staring at the screen.
Sit down and start solving on a chess board.
But don’t feel any necessity to do it that way; just try to “see” as far as you can with the diagram, and if you can’t keep the position or visualize deep enough, then its time to set up a board.
This wayit will improve your vision on a real board also since real chess games are OTB.
If you can mate him, it will be good. If you cannot, try tactical methods to snare some free stuff!
Oops – looks like I just blurted out the answer.
Don’t scroll down any further as the answer will be posted in the following lines.
Let us see what the answer is: Bb6+ followed by RxN. (The Knight is defending the Rook on d2. So you get the picture now?). Black loses a lot of material and resigned.
