From ChessKid To Champion!

Can you grow from ChessKid to national champion? Sure you can! But it takes a lot of hard work.

FunMasterMike won the K-3 National Championship waaay back in 1988, well before ChessKid existed. Many fewer kids played chess back then!

As I was walking out of the giant hotel in Nashville, Tennessee that hosted nationals in early May, I spotted Ronen Wilson, who had also just won the K-3 national championship. I did some quick math and realized he won it exactly 30 years after I did!

That sounded like a good photo opportunity to me!

Expert Ronen Wilson, his big trophy, and FunMasterMike.

Ronen's rating climbed over 2000 with his win. Afterward, I asked him a few questions on how he got so good. Here's what he had to say about how he used ChessKid:

"I love watching the videos with the funny animations," Ronen said (his favorite video authors are FunMasterMike, Magician4MA, Benzoo and GingerGM). "Sometimes I just watch for fun. I did the blitz and the rapid tournaments. I remember playing FurrySpaghetti, and HollowIce, and almost losing against FizzyBand because I hung my rook for a knight."

Ronen at the national championship, wearing his official USA team jacket.

What's his favorite "FunMasterMike" expression? It's one you may know!

"I use the pin quite often in my own games," he said. "I remember the phrase 'put PP on the PP.' If you ever ask me how I learned the pin, the answer is ChessKid.

He said he plays a lot of blitz and does tactics.

"I also do drills and watch PRO Chess League videos. I sometimes play the bots on ChessKid for seeing how I do against what levels. Soon I’m going to play CircuitBreaker, and Megahertz."

He's pretty good against humans, too. Here's his favorite win from nationals, where he really understands trading into a winning endgame!

Ronen has finished second and third place at nationals several times and won the Virginia State Scholastic titles twice. He also won the Grade Nationals last December (third grade section) and got second in CONIC once!

Ronen focuses before a round.

We asked Ronen if GM Fabiano Caruana, the future world championship challenger, could make videos for ChessKid, what would he want them to be about? He said: how to manage time pressure, how to play in a big event, and how to deal with distractions.

Ronen is also an avid swimmer and plays the violin. He loves the "Harry Potter" series of movies and has also begun writing his own series called "Kitty Adventures" about different cats that go on adventures or save the world!