Chess by Daniel Hung

This post will be a joint congratulations to my students that performed well at the Super State Tournament as well as a student spotlight for Nash.

I have to say that my students' performance at the Texas Super State Tournament was incredible, the best I've ever had. Advaith placed First in the Primary Championship Section, Nash placed First in the Primary JV Section, Azhar placed Third in Primary JV, and Sai placed Third in Elementary JV. Additionally, the following students also placed in the Top 20 in their respective section (they only awarded medals to Top 20): Sathvik, Vibhav, Vishruth, Thiran, Akhilesh, and Hithesh. Many of the students also assisted their School in Winning Team Trophies and/or won other awards/prizes. I'm extremely proud of all my students as for most of them this was their first state tournament and they wouldn't have had the success they did without their effort in preparing for this tournament.

Now, let me talk about Nash. Those that read my previous spotlights should know that I'll tell the truth as is, the good and the bad about the student. Chess is an objective game, there are good moves, bad moves, things you did right, things you did wrong, and to improve, you need to be open to understanding your mistakes/weaknesses and try to fix/overcome them. Nash is actually one of my longer tenured students, having his 100th lesson with me recently. In his second tournament in December 2023, he reached a USCF rating of 433 and while he reached a peak of 684 in April 2025, his rating kept fluctuating and dropping until it bottomed exactly two months ago at 466. But 3 tournaments since then, he's doubled his rating to 986 and placed First at the State Tournament. So what's going on? That's always the question I ask myself as I assess each student after each lesson and at the end of each year. When we looked at the last two years, his rating did not really improve, which I attributed to poor opening play and blundering too much. He also admittedly might not have been spending enough time on chess. And actually, earlier in 2025, I gave him and another student an ultimatum to reach 600 USCF by the end of the year or they can't continue with me as I don't want to waste their parents money if they're not improving. Sometimes ultimatums work and sometimes it doesn't, but fortunately for everyone, Nash worked on his weaknesses, studied hard for my old second exam and passed part I (knowledge), while failing part II the puzzle section, so I told him he needed to work more on the latter. He did and the result is what you see today. It's probably cliche at this point, but the takeaway is hard work pays off. Trust the process and be willing to accept constructive criticism and address those problems. Persevering through the hard time and you'll see the fruits of your efforts. I asked him some questions for this spotlight and below are his responses:

1. How did you feel winning the State Championship? I was happy because I won all the games in my first State championship and my USCF rating will probably go over 1000. Also, I was relieved that the tournament was over since it was a long 2 days and I was trying to win all my games.

2. How did you prepare for the State Tournament? I practiced a lot on chess.com and watched chess videos on YouTube to learn different openings and strategies. I also have been doing alot of puzzles in the 1001 Chess Exercise book that my Coach Daniel gave me.

3. What's next for you in terms of chess? What goals do you want to accomplish this year and long term? I want to get to 1500 rating by the end of the year and play in at least 1 tournament each month. I want to learn new openings and strategies to be able to compete in the Championship section.

4. What do you like about chess? I like the strategy and competition in Chess. I have been playing since I was 4 and I've been improving my game. I also like the friends that I meet at the chess tournaments.

I hope the other students can take away something from this. There's not just one way to the top, there are many, and some methods may work on some students, but some may not. That's why I tell students to try different openings to see what they like. Figure out if they like tactical/positional positions then choose their openings based on that as well as other considerations. Work on the phases of their game that they're weak at or try to avoid it if possible.

What Nash accomplished recently was inspiring and we're all rooting for his further success!

I hope everyone had a Wonderful Thanksgiving! I haven’t had to do this in a while since I have 30 kids on the waitlist, but the Friday times did not work for any of the kids on the waitlist, so I’m posting that I have openings for two students in my Friday 5-6pm Beginner Class (U600 USCF) and one spot in my Friday 6-7pm Intermediate Class (600-1000 USCF) both at the Leander Library. I can also take 2-3 kids in my online Advance Class (1,000+ USCF) on Sunday 10:50AM-11:30AM. $35 for the in person classes and $20 for the online class. Feel free to message me if you’re interested or email me at [email protected].

This time I'm spotlighting my student Sathvik, who debuted on the US top 100 list for age 7 and under for the month of June! It's definitely not easy to do as most kids this age have a hard time focusing and learning chess. Unlike many kids his age, he's actually quiet and respectful. When I started teaching him around 6 months ago, he was already 700 rated and has been 700 rated for 6 months already. Within the first few weeks of starting, he even dropped to the 600s. One thing I noticed was that he had full notations of his games, which is great in that most kids his age or even older are always complaining about notating and even if they're notating, they're always messing up on notating and only providing a small part of their games. But from providing whole games, I realized a problem is that usually kids stop notating once they get to 5 minutes and under in games, yet Sathvik always seem to have notation for the whole game even far into the endgame, meaning he's been playing too fast as he basically never goes under 5 minutes during games. It's a common problem and besides reminding kids to play slower, I generally prohibit students from playing bullet chess while strongly discouraging blitz. I encourage daily chess instead, where they can essentially take as long as they want to make their moves. Similarly, I encourage kids to work on harder puzzles where they may need to take a few minutes to solve. Playing slower is still a work in progress, but what always help is simply putting effort into chess and not just playing games. He spent the second most time among all my students on chessable, completing all the courses I assigned. I've said it a few times already, but one must trust in the process, that the hours of work you put into chess will one day bear fruit. For Sathvik this was a few months later, where he got to 899, then over 1,000 before competing at Super Nationals, where he earned a medal (they only give medals at Nationals) for placing in the top 20 out of 222 kids in his section. If he had won his last game, he would have at least tied for 3rd. Since then, his rating has dropped a bit, but as I tell students, chess rating is often two steps forward and one step back. Basically all my students that reached 1,000 will get knocked back down to the 900s or lower as the 1,000+ rated sections are very challenging and there's very little separating the kids from each other. The solution is still the same. Analyzing his games and seeing what the problems are and trying to address it. Once these problems are addressed, I'm sure we'll see Sathvik take another step forward in chess.