Tournament of H.S. Champions
By Marshall Johnson
Every year, in conjunction with the U.S. Open, there is a national tournament sponsored by noted chess philanthropist, Arnold Denker. This tournament gathers together the H.S. Champion from every state in the Union. They travel to the site of the U.S. Open and play in a 6 rd. Swiss. Since the rounds are played in the morning, there is also time for them to play in the U.S. Open concurrently. More information on the Denker tournament is available here at the USCF website.
This year's representative from Michigan was Kent Hershberger. He was a senior last year at a true hotbed of Michigan chess activity -- Kearsley High in Flint. Kearsley is the home of such luminary figures as, several times Michigan Women's chess champion, and Scholastic chair, Jennifer Skidmore; Michigan Chess Editor, Jeff Aldrich & the man who started the tradition, long-time Kearsley chess coach, Mike Skidmore. Anyone, who has ever attended a scholastic tournament at Kearsley High, has no doubt noticed the impressive group of very large trophies (from national tournaments!) that have been won by several generations of chessplayers that have passed through the "Kearsley chessplayer-producing machine".
Kent has begun attending Kettering University in nearby Flint, where he is studying Computer Engineering. Kent is (or "Captain Kent" as he likes to be referred to, in a playful pirate reference -- the origins of which, are somewhat murky -- Aaarrrgh!) not exactly the type to cloister himself in a small room with a stack of chess books and the latest version of Fritz running on the computer. He's an all around guy, who was captain of his high school soccer team, involved in quiz bowl, theater, honors classes and captain of the chess team for 2 years. He says " I like being active, I even hate sitting at the chess board for too long, if you ever watch me [at a tournament] you will notice that I get up a lot." But just because he is a young man of many interests, doesn't mean that chess gets put on the back burner.
His favorite chessplayer is Mikhail Tal "because of his style". He believes that chess Should be studied "backwards, learning the endgame first, which makes sense because it is the most complicated part of chess, there are fewer pieces to move but one tempo mistake loses a game." And one thing he believes very strongly is that: "To take a complicated position and reduce it to a simple pattern helps a lot."
Kent won the honor of representing Michigan in the Denker tourney by virtue of finishing higher than all other Michigan High School students at last year's Michigan Junior Open. He says of the experience "I had to work hard to get the honor to go to the Denker and it was worth it, I had a blast. Being able to represent Michigan was an honor. "
When he first arrived for the competition that started in Los Angeles, CA on Aug. 3, he experienced a bit of culture shock, no it wasn't So. Cal., so much as it was the level of competition. He explains, " Most of them had private lessons with a GM or an IM or had one handy on their team. I come from an average middle class home, my dad works for GM, I have never had a chess lesson in my life, my coach is an 1800 and I have some friends who are class A players -- I just learned by playing them. When I talked with some of the kids there I would complain about having a hard time breaking 1700 and they would complain about having a hard time breaking 2100, it was just so different. The level of competition was so much higher it seemed I didn't play anyone less than 200 points ahead of me." So, how would Kent face this challenge? Did it overwhelm him? He says, " You will always face challenges in your life and you only have two choices -- you can run from them or you can stand up and face them and do your best." He then continues, " When a challenge presents itself the worst that can happen is you lose and sometimes, in losing, you win. Whereas, if you shrink from a challenge you will always wonder what could have been. I suppose my approach to a lot of things is just put your head down and go in swinging … you might get a few bruises on the way in but you will generally give what you get."
Well, that's the fighting philosophy that our representative took to LA to represent the HS chessplayers of Michigan. In spite of the odds against him, he did get 1.5 out of 6 points. Not bad!
In addition to playing in the Denker tournament, Kent also played in the U.S. Open at night and still found plenty of time to cultivate newfound friendships. "I made a couple of good friends in California and I have plans to go to several tourneys with them and share a room this year, in fact I may go to the US Open again just to see some of them." He also found one particularly good friend, in a way that most "True Blue" Michigan men would find hard to believe. He explains, " The guy from Ohio is a big OSU fan, he was wearing an OSU shirt and I was wearing my Michigan shirt so we started talking about football. Now we are in a fantasy football league together and I'm trying to get tickets to the game this year so he can come up and we can go together." Well, a brand of camaraderie that can even overcome the 'OhowIhateOhioState' syndrome! How special is that? View pictures of Kent's Denker experience.
It seems that Kent Hershberger, Michigan's 2003 Denker representative, picked up some memories that will last a lifetime. And I believe that those of us who are older than him can learn something from his fighting spirit. And those younger than him can dream about representing Michigan in the Denker some day. To end this piece we have a game that Kent played in the Denker tournament that was "Auto-annotated" by the Jr.8 chess engine. It was a draw against an opponent rated over 300 points above him! Jr.8's comments and evaluations are a bit severe. It was a well-played and hard fought game in which both players had chances, Kent was playing one of his favorite openings -- the Nimzo-Indian as Black. Splitting the point on this game was a just reward for both players. Kent's a single guy & loves to get fan mail or just correspond with people interested in chess, war simulation games, football or young women who like to talk to single guys ;-).