The chess star from Iowa City

Marion native fights chess grandmaster to a draw
By Adam Belz
The Gazette

A University of Iowa graduate student from Marion tied the world’s fourth-ranked chess player Tuesday in an exhibition game in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Jason Juett, 24, of Iowa City, played Veselin Topalov, of Bulgaria, a former world champion, to a draw.

Each player had 30 minutes to play in the hourlong game, and Topalov offered the draw when both had less than a minute left. They had an equal number of pieces left on the board.

“I was just lucky that one of my best games happened to be the one that everyone was watching,” Juett said after returning to Marion early Saturday morning.

“I could tell how powerful of a chess player he was. Even though I got the draw, I was really pressed hard for the whole game.”

Topalov played wearing a blindfold and relayed his moves to a woman who sat at the table with Juett. That wasn’t as much of a disadvantage as it might seem, Juett said, because Topalov can easily visualize the board.

It became a factor at the end, though, when each player had to move quickly to avoid losing by running out of time before the other.

That’s when Topalov offered the draw.”He had the big disadvantage in moving because he had to say his moves and relay it to somebody, so he wouldn’t be able to move as fast as me,” Juett said. “It would have seemed unfair to take advantage of that.”

Afterward, Juett and Topalov briefly discussed the game.”He’s very competitive, so he didn’t like conceding the draw, but he was still very friendly,” Juett said.

The game was televised nationally in Bulgaria, where Juett spent most of the past week. He said people recognized him on the street after the match.

Working on a doctorate in mathematics, Juett qualified for the competition last year by winning a contest to see who could best predict Topalov’s moves in a series of games over 10 days against five of the world’s other top chess players.

Source: http://www.gazetteonline.com/