Jeremy Troff: 2009 Utah State High School Chess Champ

Ever wondered what’s it like being a State Chess Champion? In the following one-on-one interview with previous 2008 Jr. High and present 2009 Utah State High School Chess Champ Jeremy Troff , a Wholesale Chess member, tells us all about his experiences with chess.

What’s your favorite chess experience/memory of playing chess?
My favorite experience is when I won the Jr. High State Championship in 2008. I started playing in the state tournaments when I was in 5th grade. My grade was really tough and included some of the top chess players in the state: Tony Chen and Adam Mielke. Every year, I would fall short of taking the state title. When I reached my final year of Jr. High, I really wanted to take the title. When I finally won it and had to beat both my rivals (even though we are all friends) to do it, that was an amazing feeling! I have since won the State High School Championship, but winning the Jr. High was my best memory!

What do you enjoy most about playing chess?
Chess isn’t something that most people know how to do. I enjoy the novelty of it and the surprise in people when they find out that I am a tournament chess player. I love the mind challenge that it presents to me each time I start to play.

Has chess helped you in your other pursuits and academic studies?
Chess has been a huge benefit to me in all aspects of my life! Everything I have learned in chess, I can use to my benefit in other areas. Chess forces you to think things through and to keep your mind focused. It teaches you how to plan and how to analyze a situation. I am a runner for Bingham High School. I use the things I have learned through chess, all the time in my running.

What has chess taught you about growing up as a kid and life in general?
One of the main things is that I have learned that I love to be with my family. My parents have always helped us pursue our dreams. Plus chess is just a mini game of life. Every time we go to move we have to consider all the possibilities. This is just like in life when we must choose where we will go and what we will do. Every thing has a consequence whether you are playing on the chess board or going through life.

You’ve played chess with a number of Grandmasters-what was it like? What are a few of the great lessons you learned from them?
I remember the first time we had a Grandmaster over I was just thinking about how bad we were going to lose. One of the first things he asked us to do was get our losses off the Internet chess club so that we could look at them. When he only went over our losses I started to wonder why he didn’t go over our wins. I asked him one day and he said, “What am I going to do, look over your wins and say good job? You can learn so much more from your losses than you can from your wins. This is something I will always remember. No matter how good you are, there will be losses. No one wins all of their chess matches. But if you look at your losses as an opportunity to learn then there is a lot of benefit from that. I have used that and many other things he taught me to prepare for my own private teaching.

What advice do you have for other kids learning and playing chess?
One thing I always tell my students is that they must always make a plan. You must always have an idea of what you want to do and how you are going to do it. Second, you must practice as much as you can. Even if you lose you can learn a lot of things and the experience of playing will help you a lot.

If I’m not a chess player, but I want to start learning-what would you recommend I do?
I would recommend that you would get an ICC account. It is the Internet chess club where you can play people from all over the world. Practicing is one of the keys to not only getting started but also to get better at chess.

You hold chess camps throughout the year for youth wanting to learn chess-what is your favorite thing about teaching others to play chess?
The enthusiasm that each kid brings with them to the chess camp is fun. We make our lessons so that not only will the kids learn something but they also will have fun. It shows on each of their faces and that is the thing that I enjoy most about teaching.

What chess software or learning tools would you recommend for kids your age?
Well there isn’t any specific software for kids my age. It more depends on your level in chess. If your starting out or even for those more advanced, I would recommend Chess Tactics for Beginners. Don’t be fooled by the name because these problems can get pretty advanced. The next one up is Chess Tactics for Intermediate Players. This is very hard chess software and one I think would take anyone a long time to do if they wanted to get a good score on it. There are several different software programs for just about every level of players.

Anything else you’d like to tell kid and adult chess players about yourself or the game of chess?
People think that chess is an easy game and doesn’t involve much. However, this isn’t true. There are so many things involved in chess that even experts are still trying to learn everything. Always practice because if you take a long break from chess you can actually get worse. It is just like anything else that you want to be good at, if you don’t practice you will not get better.

A note from the author: I’d like to thank Jeremy Troff for his willingness to interview with Wholesale Chess. I have been very impressed with both the Troff family’s kindness and Jeremy’s exciting accomplishments in chess – and I wish him all much luck in his future endeavors.