Joseph Wan of Nebraska won the k-3 Championship section at the 2011 National Elementary Chess Championships in Dallas, Texas. Joseph scored 6.5/7 and finished a half point ahead of his former California rival Rayan Taghizadeh. Joseph Wan’s championship is a rare win for the state of Nebraska at a United States Chess Federation national tournament.
In 2009, Joseph Wan was a first grader at Mission San Jose Elementary School in Fremont, California. It was here that Joseph met chess coach Chris Torres and quickly became one of the top chess players his age in the state. Joseph Wan went on to become a State Chess Champion but narrowly missed winning the National Elementary k-1 Championship by committing a rare blunder in the endgame of his final round. With his championship run in 2011, Joseph has finally achieved the level of success coach Chris Torres always knew he was capable of.
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Published by chessmusings
Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California. Chris Torres served as the President of the Torres Chess and Music Academy from 2005-2020 and currently is recognized as a correspondence chess master with the United States Chess Federation. Since 1998 Chris Torres has taught 6 individual national champions as well as led multiple school teams to win national championship titles. In addition, Chris Torres has directed and taught at 10 different schools which have been California State Champions at chess. In 2011 and 2012, several former and current students of Chris Torres have been selected to represent the United States at the World Youth Chess Championships. Mr. Torres’ hobbies include playing classical guitar and getting his students to appear on the national top 100 chess rating lists.
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