MY BEST MOVE
HÉCTOR R. HERNÁNDEZ
FOUNDER, KNIGHT MOVES CHESS CLUB
MENTOR TO A GENERATION OF STUDENTS
move. Early on in my professional career, I started a chess club to promote the game in our community. I was determined to share with others what I knew about the royal game. Since then, our club has met every week for 26 years. Youngsters who have come up through
C
our club have done well for themselves. Among them are a physicist and a mechanical engineering professor (both of whom worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory), a computer scientist, a science teacher, two bilingual teachers (one of them is now a tournament director), a linguist, and two engineering students who earned significant scholarships: Cristián Peña, who won a $12,000 chess scholarship, and Cuauhtémoc Ortiz, who earned a $98,000 non-chess scholarship. Peña and Ortiz appear in a short video at http:
vimeo.com/35227730. José Rodríguez finished in first place in the U.S. Junior Open in his age group, at ages 6, 7, 8, and U-15. The Chicago Latino Chess Champi-
onship is the most important of our quarterly tournaments. It has come a long way from 12 participants in 1993 to 100 in recent editions. It happens at a time when families are together and looking for a fun and free activity: Thanksgiving weekend. It draws players from city and suburban public and private schools. Mex- ican champions IM Roberto Martín del Campo and WIM Yadira Hernández have competed in it. Of course, I play chess too. While some
of what I just described comprise my best life moves, my best chess move took place in 1993:
Finding the right squares Josh Manion (2365) Héctor R. Hernández (2005)
Tim Just’s Winter Open X (4), 01.10.1993 72 July 2015 | Chess Life
AFTER 23. Re2 My opponent sacrificed his bishop,
which gave White two pawns, open lines
hess, like education, is a great equalizer. It puts everyone on equal footing. This idea led me to make my best
“
Chess, like education, is a great equalizer. It puts everyone on equal footing.
My opponent was a 16-year-old national
master rated 2365. White had difficulties mobilizing his forces while my pieces found nice squares to go to.
”
and more space on the kingside. He may be able to line up his pieces for a final assault on my king. So, My Best Move follows: my king starts a journey from g8 to b8, looking for safety.
23. ... Kf8! 24. g4 Ke7 25. Nf3 Rh8 Josh has one minute left on the clock
to reach his 40th move, with no delay. 26. Qg2 Kd7 27. Rd1 Rcg8 28. Bxb5+ White offers his other bishop, but the
black monarch continues on its way to b8.
28. ... Kc8 29. Bd3 Bh6 30. g5 Nh5 31. Qg4 Nf4 32. f6+ Kb8 33. Ree1 Bc8 34. Qg3 Nce6 35. Nd5 Nxd5 36. exd5 Nxg5 37. Nxg5 Bxg5 38. Qf2 Bf4 39. h4 Rg4, White resigned.
Whose Best Move would you like to see? Write to us at
letters@uschess.org.
PHOTO: KEITH AMMANN
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