Intellectually precocious kids like it

Kids flock to tri-state chess meet
By Rick Wills
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, January 7, 2007

Several hundred students descended upon Carnegie Mellon University to participate in the Tri-State Junior Chess Open.

Alex Zhang, 7, has played chess, an intricate game that he says never bores him, for two years.
“It’s a great game,” said the O’Hara youth. “It’s never the same.”

Zhang was one of 313 participants in Saturday’s Tri-State Junior Chess Open at Carnegie Mellon University, a tournament sponsored by the Pittsburgh Chess Club that includes children from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Zhang is in the “Championship” category, the most advanced of the nine sections at the tournament. He routinely beats his father, Hui Zhang, 38, a native of Beijing, along with other adults he has met at a local chess club in O’Hara.

“I only started this a couple of years ago,” Hui Zhang said. “I feel like I have to catch up with him.”

Greg Vaisleib, 16, of O’Hara, says Alex is a formidable opponent. “He’s rough. He usually beats me.”

Now in its 10th year, the tournament this year drew more participants than last year, when about 250 attended, said Jerry Myers, president of the Pittsburgh Chess Club and the organizer and chessmaster of the tournament, which drew players from Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Chess is especially popular among young people, said Myers, who has organized the tournament since 1997. More schools are starting chess clubs and many parents see chess as a way to intellectually stimulate their children.

“Intellectually precocious kids like it,” Myers said. “Lots of them are from families that take education very seriously and encourage them to play.”

Here is the full article.