Lifestyle Spotlight

The Year of Sheltering Dangerously By Ben Fong-Torres

Posted by Ben Fong-Torres - on Wednesday, 31 March 2021

The Year of Sheltering Dangerously By Ben Fong-Torres Well, hasn’t THIS been a fun 365? As we approached the anniversary of the shelter-in-place orders for the San Francisco Bay Area, on March 16, I thought of some of the changes we’ve been through. In February, our calendar was packed with restaurant dinners and a large, loud gathering at Harbor Villa, saluting our friend, the civil rights attorney Dale Minami. And there was my 24th time as co-anchor of the...

8 year old Awonder Liang of Wisconsin Wins World Chess Championship

Posted by AC Team on Thursday, 08 December 2011.

8 year old USA Team member Awonder Liang of Madison, Wisconsin is the best chess player in the world for his age group. He won the gold medal at the World Youth Championship in Brazil in the Under 8 Open, November 26, 2011.

This year's coach and World Chess Federation Senior Trainer (FIDE - Fédération Internationale des Échecs) was Michael Khodarkovsky.

awonder liang photo by andrea rosen

Photo (Left): USA Team member 8 year old Awonder Liang wins Gold Medal at World Youth Chess Championship in Brazil.

Photo by permission Andrea Rosen

Here's a sample of the rankings from the American team competing at the World Youth Championship in Caldas, Novas Brazil this year:

Awonder Liang of Wisconsin earned a gold medal in the Under 8 Open with 7.5/9

Ruifeng Li of Texas earned a silver medal in the Under 10 Open with 7/9.

Sarah Chiang of Texas earned 4th place in the Girls Under 14Jeffrey Xiong of Texas earned 5th in the Open Under 12.

David Peng of Northbrook, Illinois earned 7th in the Under 8 Open.

Albert Lu of Southern California placed 12th in the Under 10 Open.

Kevin Wang of Maryland placed 15th in the Under 14 Open.

Varun Krishnan of La Jolla, California placed 14th in the Under 14 Open.

Click here for the story from NPR here for the story in the New York Times and
here to the U.S. Chess organization.