Chess Student: Ziping Liu

Congratulations to my chess student, 12-year-old Ziping Liu of Summit, for finishing with a score of 5-1-0 (a full point ahead of his teacher!) at the US Amateur Team East tournament in Parsippany on Presidents' Day weekend.

When I began giving him chess lessons last June, his rating was only USCF 631. Today it stands at USCF 1391. At this rate, I will soon be taking chess lessons from him!


Daily Record (Morristown, NJ)
February 19, 2007
Players from all over check in at Parsippany chess tournament
Author: ZENAIDA MENDEZ DAILY RECORD
Page: COMMUNITIES38
Estimated printed pages: 2
Article Text:
PARSIPPANY -- Ziping Liu has performed unexpectedly well this weekend in the 37th annual World Amateur Team & U.S. Team East chess tournament at the Hilton.
Liu, a 12-year-old from Summit, is no stranger to chess tournaments but hadn't previously competed in this popular three-day event, where he managed to beat out two much higher-rated players during the first day and a half of play.
"He's in line for one of the biggest upsets," Steve Liesch, the father of Liu's teammate, Bill Liesch, said proudly.
"It feels good," the 12-year-old Liu said. "It's like payback because a lot of them I play at Swiss and they kill me."
Liu's team had fared so-so midway through the competition, but they hoped to play better today, the final day of the tournament.
A total of 1,174 players --including nine international grand masters, 33 international masters and eight masters --are competing in the event, said E. Steven Doyle, past president of the New Jersey State Chess Federation. The field is diverse, with competitors ranging in age from five to 93 and hailing from various states on the eastern seaboard.
And, "this is the first time we are promoted to be the World Amateur Team," Doyle explained. "We are the largest world amateur team event in the world."
The tournament primarily has been held in New Jersey since 1972, and has taken place at the Hilton for the last 15 years, Doyle added.
In the tournament, players compete in teams consisting of four members. Each day, there are two elimination rounds.
"It's a whole different strategy" compared to playing individually, said Andres Castaneda, of Hartford, Connecticut. He was playing on the "Just Another NBCCA team," representing Connecticut's New Britain Chess Club.
"The matches are scored not how you do individually, but how the team does as a whole,"Castaneda said.
The tournament was very much a social affair and a learning opportunity for amateurs, who may observe or wind up competing against stronger chess players. The general public is invited to observe, at no charge.
Ziping Liu's teammate, 16-year-old Tony Liu [no relation],of Warren, said he learned more about chess in a day and a half of tournament play than he'd learned since he started playing.
"It definitely improves your game because you get exposure to a lot of different stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily see just playing in your high school chess club," Steve Liesch, of Millington, said, "and it's exciting because whether you win or lose really means something.
"Sometimes there are upsets," he said, pointing to Ziping Liu as an example.
"He beat somebody yesterday that he wasn't really thinking he was going to beat," Liesch said, referring to Ziping, "and he managed to pull a win out of the hat. So it was good."
Zenaida Mendez can be reached at (973) 989-0652 or zmendez@gannett.com.
"It's a whole different strategy. ... The matches are scored on not how you do individually, but how the team does as a whole." -- Andres Casteneda, chess player, of Hartford, Conn.
Copyright (c) Daily Record. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Gannett Co., Inc. by NewsBank, inc.Record Number: mor22833314