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Click on the chess box / image to view the clip with Darwin Yang and his father.


Tech chess tourney draws world's best, including 13-year-old
Reported by: Jaime Gerik
Last Update: 10:35 am

On most any nice day you can catch some of Texas Tech's finest chess players near the Student Union Building perfecting their skills. All the practice came in handy during the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence Tournament, when the Red Raiders took on competitors from places like Canada, Brazil and Hungary.

Even among all the international talent, everyone had their eye on a young competitor from Plano.

Darwin Yang sat in the competitor's seat against someone three times his age too many times for him to count.

"I practice by playing games on the Internet, and also read books and take lessons from my coach," says Yang. The 13-year-old sees a coach once a week to help perfect his chess skills. That is, when he's not traveling long distances to compete. He's been to tournaments in Turkey and Vietnam.

"It's a good opportunity to go out, other places across the country, because you can play strong players you can't find in Plano," says Yang.

A taxing but worthwhile experience for Darwin's parents, who go above and beyond the normal call of duty.

"Five years, we just go to the things and build up a very good relationship between him and me," says Darwin's father Tujiu Yang.

He says Darwin's passion was sparked on a cruise ship. At one point during the trip he went looking for Darwin and found him naturally drawn to the game.

"He was standing by the chess board, there's a big chess board on a cruise ship and he was standing there for an hour to watch people play chess," says the elder Yang.

That was many moves ago. Now Darwin is trying to reach International Grandmaster, a title held by only a thousand players in the world. This tournament was one step in the right direction. He received hi first International Norm in nine games.

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