ChessKid Becomes National Champion!

Young Lucas Yang of New York City's Speyer Legacy School is now the best kindergarten chess player in the United States! He went a perfect 7-0 in his first national tournament to win the Kindergarten section of the 2019 National K-12 Grade Championships in Orlando, FL earlier this month.

Don't let his size fool you! Lucas barely comes up to FunMasterMike's waist but he's an avid ChessKid user and is closely gaining on me, at least in terms of chess ability!

Lucas Yang (standing!) and FunMasterMike (kneeling!) shortly before his final game. Photo courtesy Yang family.

The perfect tournament was probably not something Lucas could have predicted (although there does seem to be a lot of success with kids named Lucas and this tournament!).

Lucas had to play five of the top 10 finishers in his seven games, including the second- and third-place finishers in the closing rounds. Both of them had ratings in the 1100s whereas Lucas was in the 800s, so that's a great example of focusing on the game and not the rating! (For the record, Lucas jumped from 825 to 1062 after the tournament.)

Lucas with his (very heavy) first-place medal. Photo courtesy Yang family.

Here is Lucas' favorite game, a long struggle in round six against the eventual third-place finisher. Lucas was Black but had to face someone named Luke!

So how does Lucas use ChessKid to improve? His dad said: "Lucas uses ChessKid primarily for the puzzles and sometimes video lessons. We also use Chess.com's engine (diamond membership) to analyze his games and retry mistakes."

Speyer Legacy School uses ChessKid for every one of their younger students.

Congratulations to Lucas. And let's also celebrate all of the chess moms and dads who support their children! Here's Lucas and his proud father after the awards ceremony:

As the Super Bowl winner often says after winning: "We're going to Disneyworld!" Photo courtesy of Yang family.