Chiles High School freshman William Wu was recently awarded a title years in the making: candidate master.
Wu, who has been playing the game of chess since he was 6 years old, earned the distinction at the 2022 Georgia Class Championships in Atlanta. The title of candidate master is awarded to chess players who demonstrate a high level of proficiency and have met requirements that take typically at least a decade to complete according to Keith Roberson, the faculty advisor for the chess club at Florida State University.
“Earning the title of life master, at such a young age, is no small feat, and is a testament to his many long hours of practice and determination, over many years,” Roberson told the Democrat.
Wu said his main goal is to one day become a national master, the highest title awarded exclusively in the U.S. by the United States Chess Federation (USCF), which uses a complex rating system to score chess players and determine their champion status. A player’s rating increases with tournament wins or defeating equal or higher level opponents; the rating decreases with losses. A candidate master must at one point have a rating of 2100 or more.
The average age of top performing chess players is getting younger, with the youngest grandmaster in the world being a 12-year-old from New Jersey and the second youngest is 18 years old.
Other Leon schools news:Bond Elementary students partner with high schoolers to build robots
More:‘Bad Blood punch,’ karaoke and costumes: ‘Swifty Creek’ celebrates Taylor Swift’s birthday
LCS superintendent:Florida DOE may ‘force us to out’ students to parents
“It gets harder as you go up the ladder,” Wu shared about the process of increasing his rating by playing in various tournaments.
With a current USCF rating of 2079 and a peak at 2108, Wu has played in sessions with other players of a similar rating. In chess, to determine the competition, the game does not acknowledge the age of the players, only the rating. Wu has faced opponents much older than him; his oldest match was 72-years-old.
“I’d say that age isn’t a barrier, chess is a universal game,” Wu said.
Wu competed in the 2021 Carolinas Classic in Charlotte, North Carolina where he won a first-place prize of $1000. When sitting down for his tournament games, Wu prepares for a game that lasts at least five hours, measured by a timer and using a pen and pad to keep track of his moves.
“At the start of each game I am usually exceedingly nervous, but once the game starts I am keeping track of my time and making sure I’m using it wisely,” Wu said.
On a weekly basis, Wu dedicates about 10 hours to practicing chess, a time that has recently gone down from 15 hours a week due to his busy schedule with school and other extracurriculars. Wu, a straight A student, is a member of the Mu Alpha Theta math club and plays tennis in his free time.
Wei Wu, 48, William Wu’s father, plays chess casually with his son. Wei Wu is a professor in the department of statistics at Florida State University.
“I think it’s a great access for his brain and his logic,” the proud father said. The FSU professor often accompanies his son to his Tallahassee Chess Club meetings and to his tournaments.
William Wu attends Chiles chess club meetings every other Wednesday and Tallahassee Chess Club meetings every Saturday after teaching chess classes at 10 a.m. in the Northeast public library to beginners and advanced players.
“It really allows you to broaden your mind and look at something else in a different light and I think chess is really great at doing that,” William Wu said.
