Success of scholastic chess players at the State or National level is ultimately the result of the young player having talent, a strong work ethic and solid fundamentals. So, to prepare one of my talented students for the National Online Scholastic Quick Championship, I spent some time this afternoon reviewing the fundamental checkmates with them. As luck would have it, while playing online chess this evening I had an opportunity to use two of the foundational checkmating patterns we had worked on earlier in the day. It was especially fitting to then share my own experience with our lesson materials as a follow up to our training session in order to reaffirm why we need to take the time to master the fundamentals.
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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