Gresham ninth-grader wins U.S. chess honors
Posted by Diana Samuels April 02, 2007 18:05PM
Categories: East Multnomah County, Portland
After two weekends playing chess, a Gresham High School ninth-grader is three big trophies richer.
Steven Breckenridge placed highly in two categories at the U.S. Chess Federation’s 2007 National Junior High Championship, which is held for kindergartners through ninth-graders. He won a statewide championship the weekend before.
“I don’t really expect to win or expect to do well, I’m just hoping,” Breckenridge said before leaving for the tournament, held Friday through Sunday in Sacramento, Calif.
Here is the full story.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
beautiful picture
Dario
Kudos to Steven Breckenridge. He was the revelation of the JHS nationals in Sacramento. As an 1891 rated player, Steven defeated the #4, #6 and #1 seeds and lost only to the #2 seed. His performance rating was well over 2300 USCF. He also won the blitz championship outright.
As the coach of two of the players that Steven defeated, I must say I was very impressed by the quality of play. Most impressive was his preparation in slightly obscure but sharp variations of mainstream openings. He completely outplayed both of my young stars in a way that I thought would never happen. Steven will no doubt be a master soon if he continues playing like this!
Michael Aigner
Since no major chess website has coverage of the National Junior High School (K-9) Championship in Sacramento, let me be the first to congratulate the six winners:
K-9 section winners (six tied at 6.0/7): Alec Getz (2128 from NY), Steven Breckenridge (1891 from OR), Gregory Young (2060 from CA/N), Christian Tanaka (2126 from CA/S), Michael Yee (1994 from CA/S) and Grant Ho (1998 from FL). K-9 team champion: Hunter College with 21.0.
K-8 section champion at perfect 7-0: Marc Tyler Arnold (2333 from NY). K-8 team champion: NY I.S. 318 from Brooklyn.
Michael Aigner
CONGRATS ALEC! Alec’s rating was posted as 2128, but if you look him up he is actually 2210, and he has had so many good tournaments, drawing NICK E DE FERMIAN, and drawing 2400s and 2300s, AMAZING. Yet he did lose to a 2100 in the last round, might be a little inconsistent, but alec did get in time pressure in his last game. I can tell by the way he plays that he is better in longer time controls, then blitz.