Utah's young chess whiz, 13-year-old Brian R. Harrow, has just won his first national championship.
The National Grade School Chess Championship Tournament was held in Gilbert, Ariz. Un like the three national elementary, junior high and high school tournaments, this tournament included all grades, kindergarten through 12th.There was a section for each grade, and players faced only those in their own sections. Each grade had its own national champion.
Trophies were also presented to the nine runners-up in each section.
Approximately 500 students participated, including a number of players in the "Top 50" student list. Several national champions in other selected tournaments as well as 24 players from Quebec, Canada, participated.
Brian has an impressive string of tournament scores at national tournaments.
In 1989 as a fourth-grade student with only six months of chess experience, he played for the national championship in the "Junior Varsity" division of the National Elementary held in Tempe, Ariz. He lost only one game.
The following year in Florida he finished 12th in the "Open Section" and was 24th in 1991 at Rye, N.Y.
He holds five Utah state titles and has been on the "Top 50" list in the United States for the past three years.
A talented pianist, he has appeared on many programs and in many recitals throughout the Salt Lake Valley. He is also an avid soccer player and has been a "Collins Kid."
Part of Brian's expenses to the tournament in Gilbert was paid by the Heart Scan Foundation.
Brian is a student at Butler Middle School. He formerly played on the Rowland Hall championship team under the direction of David Lither. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth W. Harrow of Sandy.
- MATCH PLAY? - Reigning world chess champion Gary Kasparov has been quoted in the Belgrade, Yugoslavia, newspaper Pobjeda as saying he doubted he would ever play the American legend, Bobby Fischer.
"Such a match is theoretically possible, but I doubt it will ever take place," Kasparov said in an interview with the Montenegrin newspaper.
Rumors and speculation about the possibility of such a match flourished after Fischer, who won the title from former Soviet champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, 20 years ago, emerged from self-imposed seclusion in September.
In a marathon match in Yugoslavia that ended on Nov. 5, Fischer again defeated Spassky 10-5 in what the organizers called the revenge match of the century to win a $3.5 million prize.
Kasparov, who dismissed the Fischer-Spassky match before it began as a mediocre contest between "has-beens," seemed confident of victory if he were to play the American.
"Fischer's chances would be very slim," he said.
The prevailing view among experts was that in the latest encounter in Yugoslavia, Fischer displayed little of the genius that enabled him to end decades of Soviet chess supremacy in 1972.
Fischer demanded that organizers and the press call him "world champion," contending he had never lost the title in a match, but only by default.
After winning the crown from Spassky in 1972, he refused to play against Anatoly Karpov for three years. And one can't blame him for the demands made by the Soviet-controlled International Chess Federation (FIDE).
Fischer has dismissed Kasparov's playing abilities, saying his matches against Karpov were "rigged.' Kasparov has returned the backhanded compliment by describing Fischer as a shadow of his former self.
- AGE VS. YOUTH - Two senior Russian grandmasters, Yuri Averbakh, 70, and Mark Taimanov, 66, tied with Nenad Vulicevic, 30, of Yugoslavia for first place in an international tournament sponsored by Enhance Financial Services and the Marshall Chess Club of Greenwich Village. Each scored 61/2-21/2.
Vulicevic made his first international master norm.
The competition was basically a confrontation, Robert Byrne, chess editor of the New York Times, said, between two semi-retired players and several young players from ages 15 to 30.
- CONGRATULATIONS TO THE SOLVERS! - Jeff Thelin, Eugene Wagstaff, Ardean Watts, Werner Young, Steven Anderson, A.C. Ashton, Loile Bailey, Kim Barney, Steven L. Baker, Ramon E. Bassett, Daniel Barlow, Alan R. Brown, O. Ken Berg, Craig Bryson, Benjamin A. Black, Farrell L. Clark, Philip Clark, S.R. Clark, Alan Cobb, Rick L. Chatterton, George Cavanaugh, Bobby Callery, Jack Crandall, Brian Chamberlain, William DeVroom, Paul and Emily Eddington, Ken Frost, Enos Howard, David Higley, Steven Jensen, Hal Knight, Frank Knight, David B. Kirk, Raeburn Kennard, Steven Kennard, Nathan Kennard, Richard B. Laney, Jim Low, Kay Lundstrom, Connie Miller, Casimiro de Montelibretti, Lincoln McClelland, Geofrey McIntyre, Roger Neumann, Gary Neumann, Elsa Oldroyd, Ted Pathakis, Knute Petersen, Jim Reed, Ed Richmond, Philip Rodriguez, Hans Rubner, Vern Smith, Edwin O. Smith, Steven L. Staker, Leonard M. Stillman and Ed Schow.