Chess in the local media

11-year-old chess phenomenon: Tween beats 13 people at chess
Paul Taylor, 11, at one point was playing 10 people at once on different chess boards Monday.
10/23/07
By Andrea Freygang,
Rome News-Tribune
Staff Writer

…Paul Taylor is probably a pretty good loser, but there were no winners he had to bow to Monday. The 11-year-old from Kennesaw defeated 13 people at chess in less than an hour at Berry College’s Krannert Center, at one point playing 10 people at once on different chessboards. After it was all over, Paul was very nonchalant about the whole thing. As he played, he corrected his opponents, offering them chances to retry a move and even giving tips.

“I feel pretty good because this helps my play, gives more experience,” he said. “But this is just for fun. Trying to win is fun, and so is strategy, trying to understand what the opponent is doing.”

Paul is the son of Mark Taylor, a Berry College English professor.

“He’s been playing chess since he was 5,” said Taylor. “I taught him how to play the summer before he began kindergarten, and I never went easy on him.”

Soon after, Paul started playing at his school’s chess club even though it was supposed to be third grade and up.

He won the end-of-the-year tournament that year and has since won two National Scholastic chess tournaments.

The young chess champion says he started because he was bored that summer, so his dad bought him a chess game.

Taylor set up the simultaneous play at Berry College, where Paul played 10 people at once. As they lost, three more people sat down to try and beat him. No one was successful.

Kaitlin Maginnis, a Berry sophomore who tried, said she had fun anyway.

“I love it. I think he is very skilled,” said Maginnis, who said she played mostly as a kid. “It’s amazing how he can focus in the noise of the Krannert Center.”

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