ok...
Year old Benjamin Hamp refutes Bruce Pandolfini's analysis in Chess Life.
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I don't understand 17.Bxd3
It was the line that Pandolfini gave in the article. It's not a forced line, but Benjamin could see the flaw in it and 16. Qxe5 is solid.
I believe there are problems with Bruce's 16.Qxe5 line, even before move 20. I know Bruce isn't big on checking stuff with engines, but in hindsight he should have done that here.
Maybe I'm missing something but in Benjamin's variation, how does white defend against 21)...Qc2
Looks like 21)...Qc2 picks up two pawns and at least secures a draw
Thanks pfren; missed that. Not the first time I've been outwitted by a 5-year-old lol
Yeah, but He, Ni, Li or Wu would've found it too, given the chance.
As far as being better the chess engines I checked gives White a +-4.6 to 4.96 after 21...Qc2 22.Nf3 or Kh1 are both good continuations. What I'm trying to say is that at 6 years of age he could clearly calculate this continuation at move 16. He scored an impressive 70 points for an approximate rating of 2000-2199.
Bruce Pandolfini is a great communicator and teacher. I have enjoyed his books and his monthly Chess Life instructional series Solitaire Chess for many years. I recently used the November 2012 article, Excitement in the Four Knights as an online lesson for my student Benjamin Hamp and when on move 16, Benjamin wanted to capture the e-pawn I read to him from the article that it was not advised and would lead to a bad line for White. He insisted that he could take the pawn and showed me the hole in Pandolfini's analysis.
Here is the game and quotes from the article.
The key move 20. Kxf2 is sound and White is simply winning. Benjamin turned six years old this month and was five when the USCF February list of top 100 players under 7 years old was published. He was then number 53, but was the highest rated five year old in the USCF.
Here is the February 2013 list from the USCF.
USCF Home Players & Ratings Top Player Lists Top Age 7 and Under February 2013 1 Chor, Kevin D (14646646) 7 AZ USA 1780 2 Vaidya, Atreya (14280422) 7 TX USA 1738 3 He, Anthony Bi (14729222) 7 WA USA 1725 4 Wu, Logan (14635610) 7 TN USA 1651 5 Susarla, Rishith (14522553) 7 CA USA 1638 6 Ni, Maggie (14260482) 7 TX USA 1636 7 Bayaraa, Chinguun (14271324) 7 CA USA 1630 8 Maiti, Milind (14442276) 7 CA USA 1624 9 Daggupati, Balaji (14499403) 7 CA USA 1623 10 Hawthorn, Henry (14435724) 7 TX USA 1619 11 Zhu, Harvey (14456124) 7 TX USA 1612 12 Wei, Eddie Yi Ming (14679007) 7 MA USA 1577 13 Lu, Maximillian (14732597) 7 CT USA 1520 14 Polavaram, Rithik Sai (14621150) 6 TX USA 1502 15 Bakalinsky, Jacob (14537012) 7 WI USA 1484 16 Wang, Harry (14452671) 7 TX USA 1470 17 Zhu, Richard T (14806933) 7 CA USA 1442 18 Jung, Caden Li (14652503) 7 NY USA 1426 19 Shillingford, Hamilton (14586693) 7 NY USA 1394 20 Tang, Andrew (14554791) 6 TX USA 1390 21 Zhang, Eric M (14668426) 6 WA USA 1359 22 Sartorio, William Jiarui (14715380) 7 CA USA 1350 23 Guo, Arthur (14772092) 6 GA USA 1345 24 Crowley, Peter Brendan (14350655) 7 NC USA 1338 Yue, Roy H (14442626) 7 TX USA 1338 26 Manta, Jonathan P (14353854) 7 NY USA 1324 27 William, Agnes (14358165) 6 CA USA 1309 28 Ai, Evan Zihao (14780703) 7 CA USA 1303 29 Peng, Andrew (14744427) 7 CA USA 1301 30 Medina, Benjamin R (14521241) 7 NY USA 1299 31 Shibata, Robert Shintaro (14949456) 6 NY USA 1297 32 Lu, Maximus (14702493) 7 NY USA 1290 33 Pan, Kevin (14740822) 6 CA USA 1282 34 Mcnutt, William Howard (14715106) 7 TX USA 1273 35 Ghazarian, Kirk (14885268) 6 CA USA 1264 36 Lu, Kevin (14700790) 7 TX USA 1263 37 Shuman, Nathaniel Lande (14782020) 6 NY USA 1252 38 Meiyappan, Annapoorni (14744460) 7 CA USA 1251 39 Moorthy, Arun (14337037) 7 AZ USA 1249 40 Kumarappan, Ganesh (14920281) 7 TX USA 1231 41 Trakru, Rohun (14723608) 6 TX USA 1228 42 Hua, Charles (14763433) 6 NY USA 1217 43 Zhou, Ethan (14463644) 7 VA USA 1193 44 Leung, Jordan (14515431) 6 NY USA 1189 45 Sampath, Aja (14771317) 7 OH USA 1185 46 Huynh, Sean Thien (14532318) 7 NC USA 1182 47 Xia, Joseph (14625242) 7 LA USA 1173 48 Palusa, Maurya (14641168) 7 CA USA 1169 Guo, Bradley (14921922) 7 MD USA 1169 50 Reyes, Robert (14691444) 7 CA USA 1164 51 Zhang, Jason C (14698590) 7 WA USA 1162 52 Hwang, Steven Y (14614263) 7 CA USA 1157 53 Hamp, Benjamin Joel (15007098) 5 CA USA 1155 54 Kondapalli, Mihir (14715950) 7 CA USA 1152 55 Cheng, Roy (14778368) 7 CA USA 1144 56 Friedlander, Justin (14748718) 6 AZ USA 1138 57 Waldorf, Jonathan (14669750) 7 NY USA 1135 58 Singh, Keshav (14856984) 7 FL USA 1128 59 Rangan, Manish (14448998) 7 TN USA 1127 60 Pau, Ethan (14512404) 7 CA USA 1124 61 Gan, Aaron X (14678952) 6 IL USA 1123 62 Yu, Henry (14701442) 6 GA USA 1117 63 Daniels, Keith Oliver (14689512) 7 CA USA 1115 64 Hu, Merric (14686967) 6 NJ USA 1114 65 Hsu, Skylar (14427353) 7 MD USA 1108 66 Wu, David (14673872) 7 NY USA 1106 67 Mahajan, Jai (14818057) 7 IL USA 1105 68 Patil, Vedant (14623492) 6 TX USA 1101 69 Sencion, Silverio (14738843) 7 NY USA 1100 70 Zeng, Brady (14708341) 7 TX USA 1096 71 Eidelman, Gabriel (14949655) 7 CA USA 1092 72 Chou, Edward (14733406) 6 CA USA 1091 73 Chen, Michelle M (14780400) 7 OH USA 1083 74 Boris, Peter Theo (14905771) 6 NY USA 1080 75 Arengo, Rio (14699530) 7 NY USA 1073 76 Kadan, Amit (14957848) 7 MO USA 1071 77 Ledezma, Julio Alec (14490932) 7 TX USA 1068 78 Hays, Kelebrant (14709118) 7 IL USA 1065 79 Hogg, Alexander (14768184) 7 WI USA 1061 80 Koufakis, Nikko Evan (14540770) 7 NY USA 1060 81 Dong, Connor (14608563) 7 NY USA 1049 82 Prem, Pranav (14835271) 6 VA USA 1044 83 Subramaniyan, Keertana (14718917) 7 TN USA 1036 84 Civantos, Lucas (14520446) 7 NY USA 1035 85 Sudhakar, Gauravaram Ganesh (14686658) 7 TX USA 1028 86 Silberzweig, Jordan Harrison (14826173) 7 NY USA 1026 87 Liu, Ryan Jiun Pan (14695322) 7 NY USA 1023 88 Kay, Noah Robert (14814390) 6 NY USA 1022 89 Marcus, Jack Harrison (14504755) 7 NY USA 1012 Phou, Josiah Aaron (14729050) 7 TX USA 1012 91 Levin, Eliot (14584146) 7 NY USA 1010 92 Rokkam, Akhil Venkat (14586975) 7 KY USA 1008 93 Zhang, James (14587152) 7 IL USA 1007 94 Yu, Jason (14759436) 6 WA USA 997 Wang, Alex (14930994) 5 CA USA 997 96 Zong, Davis, Jr (14980186) 6 NY USA 996 97 Allen, Spencer Nathaniel (14518446) 7 AZ USA 981 98 Phillips, Amanda Noelle (14908331) 7 NY USA 979 99 Salik, Serkan (14927970) 6 CA USA 976 100 Chen, Mason (14711908) 6 TX USA 975 These Top 100 lists are updated every two months by the United States Chess Federation. Ages are as of the first day of the month in which the lists are first published. For example, ages for the December lists (published in November) are as of November 1. Ratings shown are the official USCF ratings for the month indicated, which are generated early in the month before they become official. Only current USCF members with established ratings and ratings activity in the last year are shown. Please contact us if you have questions about these lists.