8-Year-Old Chess Whiz Heads to Tournament at Paris Disneyland : Game: West Los Angeles girl has been playing since she was 4 and is a state champion.
She’d just as soon be playing soccer. Or watching TV. Or shooting baskets with her big brother.
But there will be no time for any of that today for 8-year-old Elizabeth De La Torre of West Los Angeles.
The shy third-grader arrived in Paris this morning to represent the United States at an international children’s tournament sponsored by the chess-governing group Federation Internationale des Echecs at Disneyland Paris.
She will play nine games Friday and Saturday against players from 55 countries. It will be a whirlwind “rapid chess” tourney, meaning that players will each get only 25 minutes to make the moves they need to win each game.
Naturally, with such a strenuous schedule ahead of her, Elizabeth thought carefully before picking a book to take with her Wednesday to while away the 10-hour flight to France. Probably a volume on chess strategy, right?
Nah. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the youngster said with a grin.
“She’s just a normal kid,” said her mother, Jessica De La Torre. “She always liked games when she was little. She was good at puzzles at 1 1/2--she’s always been able to sit and focus on something. But she’s still a kid.”
That means that if you ask Elizabeth about her latest victory, she’s more likely to talk about her Silver Hawks soccer team’s record (10-1-1) than her most recent chess win.
There are plenty of them. Two years ago, she defeated 40 other chess prodigies from across the country to win the National Scholastic Chess Championship’s kindergarten crown. She has been co-winner of state championships the last two years.
Elizabeth learned to play chess at the age of 4 from her father, Arturo, a counselor for people with disabilities. These days she plays each Monday at a chess club at her school, St. Paul the Apostle, and on Friday nights at practice tourneys staged there. And her father admits to studying chess far more than she does--just to keep up with her.
“She has fierce determination,” said John Surlow, St. Paul’s chess club coach.
About 30 kindergartners there play chess, said Brian Ouzounian, the school’s volunteer chess coordinator. “Parents are amazed when kids go up to their rooms and play quietly for four hours.”
Elizabeth will have a chance at playing in an exhibition match Sunday against world champion Anatoly Karpov as the tourney ends.
But her 10-year-old brother, David, has already warned her that he probably won’t be around to watch. He plans to be checking out the Disneyland Paris rides instead.
He’s just a normal kid too.
