Two Generations of Contra Costa County Chess Whizzes Achieve Major Milestones
By Beth Slatkin
Ten-year-old Josiah Stearman and 22-year-old Sam Shankland have each accomplished landmark achievements in the game of chess this month , but on opposite sides of the globe . While Shankland , the Grandmaster ( GM ) from Orinda , was steaming full speed ahead toward his first gold medal at the 41st Chess Olympiad in Tromsø , Norway , Josiah Stearman of Martinez was playing back-to-back tournaments in San Diego and Los Angeles -- six in one week -- in an all-out push toward making National Master before his 11th birthday on August 30th .
Both succeeded in their quests : Playing the " virtual fifth " board on the US team , Shankland won eight of his ten games at the 2014 Olympiad held during the first two weeks of August , drawing the other two and ending with a score of 9 / 10 . His stellar performance earned him his first individual gold medal at the world ' s most prestigious chess tournament . Three days later , Stearman became a National Master at the age of 10 .
With a 159-point deficit
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GM Shankland ( left ) and NM Stearman ( right )
earlier in the summer , the odds of making National Master before he turned 11 had seemed unlikely for the young champion . But Stearman ' s wins this month over several Masters and a surprising draw with an IM ( International Master ) catapulted him 96 rating points to put him over the top , at 2215 . To attain a National Master rating , a player must have a rank of 2200 .
Aside from being world-class chess champions , the two have something else in common : Both learned the game under the tutelage of instructors at the Berkeley Chess School , and have participated as members of the school ' s prestigious
Photos courtesy of Beth Slatkin
Berkeley Bishops chess team .
" No two students could better exemplify the ethos of the Berkeley Chess School than Sam and Josiah ," said BCS founder and president Elizabeth Shaughnessy . " We aim to develop young minds and productive citizens through the game of chess ."
Shankland , who started studying with BCS instructor Stephen Shaughnessy at the relatively ripe age of nine ( to Josiah ' s 4 1 / 2 ) in an afterschool chess class at Orinda ' s Glorietta Elementary , won his first tournament at the age of 12 and achieved the rank of National Master in June 2006 . Following a rapidly accelerating series of wins at
CalChess Journal Summer 2014