After the final round of the 2015 Susan Polgar Foundation’s National Open for Girls and Boys, there remained two-way ties for first place in four different sections. Rather than use computer generated tiebreaker scores, we let the children decide the matter themselves over a five minute game of blitz chess. Depending on the section, these finalists were playing for a seat in the FIDE World Youth Chess Championship, a seat in the Susan Polgar Foundation’s National Invitational for Girls and a $50,000 college scholarship to Webster University. All four blitz games games commenced simultaneously and each board had its own tournament director watching every move. Below is the unedited footage from the thrilling conclusion to the 2015 SPFNO.
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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