October 2000

NSCF Championship Grand Prix Winner Trung Nguyen is no stranger to tournament success. In 1998 he was equal first in the National Elementary Championships K-8 under 1000 section with a 7-0 score. In an interview with Trung and JH45 coach Cesar Solis, your webmaster obtained the following profile:
 
School: Roosevelt High.
Chess coaches: Felix Lopez, Cesar Solis.
Chess Team: Played for Junior High 45 team that tied for First Place in the 1998 National School Championships.
Favorite subject: Math. Trung likes solving puzzles and analyzing combinations, like you do in chess.
Favorite activities: Basketball and fencing. Bobby Fischer once said chess is like basketball - you keep passing the ball back and forth until you find an opening. Trung says fencing is also a lot like chess, because it's one on one - your opponent makes a move and then you have to defend yourself.
Future chess plans: More national tournaments.
Chess Study: Trung studies the games of Capablanca, Morphy and Fischer. He likes to study the endgame. This has helped him notch many a victory. For example, in this game from 1998, he wins from an inferior position because he understands the role of the king in the endgame.
Advice to others: Study endgames, and concentrate during the game.
Chess book he likes: Best Lessons of a Chess Coach

Chess aids concentration.
JH45 coach Casar Solis talked about the chess JH45 program. The program places a strong focus on behavior as well as chess. Children who enroll in the Chess program also show improvements in their grades in other subjects, especially math. Cesar believes this is because chess helps concentration and decision making. For example, in the National Championships you must concentrate for four hours, and make perhaps 50 decisions. Trung agreed, saying Chess has helped his test scores, and improved his ability to solve math problems.

An audio challenge from Trung Nguyen.

        (Do you wanna play chess?)