La Jolla boy wins San Diego chess tournament and places high in international competition

Like the momentum needed to win a chess match, 11-year-old La Jolla resident James Kased has been building his chess skills and competitive drive the past few years.

He started playing in kindergarten, and now he is celebrating winning a San Diego chess tournament over Memorial Day weekend and placing sixth out of 84 children from all over the world in the International Chess Championship in Las Vegas in early June.

His mother, Allison, noted that when James first started, his clubs would rank the players first, second or third, but James would get “honorable mention” and wasn’t “a standout player.”

But as he continued to practice, “he got better and better, so we would put him in [San Diego] tournaments when he was in first and second grade,” she said. “I think the first tournament, he had like one win and then he just started climbing the ladder ... getting progressively better. It’s pretty amazing. My husband and I don’t even play, and here is James competing in these tournaments.”

James won first place in the San Diego Chess Club Memorial Day Scholastic Competition on May 28 in the U800 category (for players ranked 800 or less).

James said he likes that chess is “a mental game. Instead of using physical [skills], it challenges your brain, so it helps your intelligence. You have to think ahead and plan, which are important life skills.”

During the tournament in Las Vegas, James played a series of G/25 games, short for “game in 25 minutes.”

“G/25s are perfect for me,” he said. “So it was a really good opportunity. I liked playing [with] people from around the world. I like to see how different people play, what their skills are, what the clubs are like where they are from, who taught them and who helped them.”

James said his most memorable match was against an older boy “in maybe eighth or ninth grade” who seemed to be at James’ exact skill level.

“I like playing people around the same skill level as me,” James said. “I’m a competitive person, so it’s better competition. I don’t want to just get an easy win, I want to fight for the win. So the game [against the older boy] went all the way to the end. He was up a pawn, but then he made one bad move and I just checkmated him. But other than that, he played really [well] throughout the entire game.”

In addition to playing with local clubs and competing in regional tournaments, James plans to join the Muirlands Middle School chess team when he enters sixth grade next school year. He also volunteers with the all-levels weekly Chess Club at the La Jolla/Riford Library that meets on Thursdays. ◆