Local Chess Wiz Crowned National Champ

Tampa Palms resident Truman Hoang didn’t study like he normally does before a big chess tournament. He put it off for a week, and then another. He was busy at school and busy with friends.

By the time he got around to preparing for the U.S. National Scholastic K-12 Chess Championships at the Disney Coronado Resort in Orlando, the event was just a few days away.

“This is your last chance,’’ his father, TrongAn, told him. “If you practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, maybe you’ll have a chance.”

Truman, as it turned out, had more than a chance. He also had a little bit of luck, and a few fortunate breaks in his favor. The end result?

Truman Hoang is now the 9th Grade U.S. National Champion, besting a field that included 88 of the best freshman players in the country.

“It’s ironic that I won,’’ said Truman, a 14-year-old freshman at Middleton High in Tampa, a school he chose because of his interest in studying bio-medicine. “We were expecting it to be a lesson that not working hard has (repercussions). I didn’t think I would do well.”

Instead, the lesson was: win the matches you’re supposed to, steal a few you shouldn’t and hang tough in even the most dire circumstances. Truman won five of his total seven matches and had draws in the other two. His six points tied him with two other players, Runya Xu of Pennsylvania and Albert Lu of California, but Truman’s opponents scored more combined points than the player Xu and Lu beat to give him the tiebreaker advantage.

“A Christmas miracle,’’ Truman joked.

Truman, a former Tampa Palms Elementary student and currently the vice-president of Middleton’s freshman class, entered the tournament with a U.S. Chess Federation rating of 2176 (a rating of 2200 is considered Master status).

In his first match, he beat a player ranked at 1400, and in the second round, defeated an opponent with an 1800 rating.

“Pretty easy,’’ he said.

In the third round, he ran into trouble. After a back-and-forth battle, Truman was down to just one second on his clock (each player starts at 90 minutes) while his opponent had 17 minutes left.

That one second, however, has a five-second delay, so Truman could make his moves safely but quickly.

Both players had a pawn and a rook, until disaster struck.

“He had an advantage, and was moving fast to try and get me to move fast. He was not using his time,’’ Truman said. “And, he made a mistake and lost his rook. It was a ridiculous mistake that almost never happens.”

It turned out to be a great escape for Truman.

“After the match,’’ Truman said, “one of my friends asked me, did you make another deal with the devil?”

In his next round, against a 1976-rated player, Truman, who is coached by Tampa’s Michael Hoffer and is a member of the New Tampa Champion’s Chess Club that studies at Compton Park in Tampa Palms, blundered a move but his opponent did not take advantage of it. At the time, Truman thought he had sunk his chances.

“Immediately when I let go of the piece, I was like, ‘Oh my God that’s horrible,” he said. “I was mentally preparing myself to see the move. I was waiting….waiting…I’ve never been to jail but I was feeling like I was on death row. But he didn’t see it. So, I was pardoned.”

He added, “Even though I won four in a row, it was kind of shaky.”

In his next two matches against players of an equal rating, Truman drew. That led to his final match against Texas teenager Hiren Premkumar, rated at 2058. Truman had already beaten him at an earlier tournament this year, and in what he says was an intense game, he withstood a kingside attack to win with five seconds left on his clock.

And, more luck for Truman — Vishal Kobla of Virginia, who only had to win his final match to stay a half-point ahead of him, was paired against Lu, the highest-rated player in the tournament at 2324, and lost.

 

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Truman, who began playing chess when he was five, gives much of the credit for his prowess to his father Trong An, a software engineer.

“He keeps me grounded,’’ Truman said. “He reminds me of how to think and how to plan and how to think about preparing. My dad is really smart.”

TrongAn taught Truman to play chess and it wasn’t long before the youngster was beating his older brother, Alexander (a senior at Middleton), and began competing in tournaments.

“I liked how the pieces move, all the pieces have different roles,’’ he says. “It’s fascinating.”

He has been a regular in the state rankings, rated the best in his class on many occasions, and has won countless state tournaments while faring well with some national wins as well.

He is not resting on his laurels, however. Though busy as the class vice-president at Middleton and being a member of the school orchestra (he plays viola), Future Business Leaders of America, Impromptu Speaking, the Health Occupation Student Association and his weekly piano lessons, Truman plans on continuing to work hard on his chess game.

He jokes that while some may have a midlife crisis, he sometimes has a chess-life crisis, wondering if it will continue to be possible to excel at the game with so many other things going in.

“I could be a lot better if I put more into it,’’ he says. “I’m still trying to put more work into it. My dad always says, if you do work on chess, the time spent shouldn’t be drudgery. Hard work doesn’t have to be hard work. It can also be fun and productive.”

And it is. Especially when you’re a newly-crowned national champion.