Hawaii High School Students Defeat Reading University in England

Congratulations to high-school students Benjamin Kim, Josh Lewis and Caleb White who demolished the University team from Reading, England. (It is pronounced Redding, not Reeding).  The final score for the match was 5.5 - 0.5.  Their second board found a beautiful move against Josh in a wildly tactical game and was relieved to escape with a draw. 

Ben Kim simply overpowered his opponent twice, with highly accurate, aggressive play.  It is clear from his 2237 rapid rating at chess .com that he has mastered the game of chess, and it will only be a matter of time before his USCF rating also reflects that.  Study the moves of these two games to see for yourself.

Caleb White also completely outplayed his opponent and finished the second game with a humorous queen sacrifice.  It was as if he said, "You want my queen, you can have it.  I have two super-strong bishops, two super-strong rooks, and a little pawn on the sixth rank that is about to deliver a discovered checkmate."  His opponent couldn't resist the free queen, but was going to lose quickly, no matter what.  You can almost hear his university opponent saying, "Yeah, he won both games, but at least I got his queen!"

Even without the mighty Ching brothers, the Hawaii K-12 team has such depth of talent this year that they can challenge some of the best colleges in the world in the World Chess League Live and expect to win.