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