GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

[Hans Jung]

http://www.uschess.org/content/view/12623/760/ Fascinating article on the amount of support of GM Kayden Troff's chess career. Amazing how much effort is put into support.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

There is a link to the book web page for the book that the article excerpts. The book looks extremely interesting but not $175 U.S. interesting which is its price. Too bad.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

I must admit that I've never heard of him. Gone are the days when all the GM's in the world (let alone the US) were household names to almost all chess players.

[Hans Jung]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

He's one of the young dynamic American youth stars (graduate of coaching workshops with Kasparov) former World Champ under 12? (I believe) and just receives his GM title this year. A couple of others are Darwin Yang and Daniel Naroditsky and there are more. (you probably havent heard of any of them unless you are in tune with the current American tournament scene) The number of young American GM's are starting to mushroom though not quite as fast as India. What are there now? - about 1500 GM's in the world?

[Hans Jung]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

I just checked the FIDE site and there are currently 1485 GM's in the world according to their stats. There are still alot of household names but most are unknowns.

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

I have to wonder- are these sacrifices really worth it? If your youngster is a budding Sidney Crosby or LeBron James, they will likely end up with a very lucrative career as a professional athlete. They may be nice enough to buy Mom and Dad a new car- or a house! Even Olympic athletes, while not making as much money, will enjoy a satisfying career (and perhaps fame and glory) for several years. But a strong chess player, at least in this part of the world, will likely be putting the pieces away for good by the time they reach their mid-twenties. Unless the youngster has a serious and realistic goal of becoming a world top-ten adult player, maybe it would be better to just encourage them to play and enjoy chess for fun and see how far their innate talent and effort gets them.

[Joel Stainer]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

20k/yr isn't a completely unusual number for rep league parents in the minor hockey league system and 99% of those kids end up playing beer league hockey when it's all said and done. 'Is it worth it?' is the question being asked in the minor hockey league system as well, and for most parents they seem to figure it is. Wouldn't be my choice, but to each their own I suppose.

[Andy Shaw]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Life is not about money. It's about being happy.

[Hans Jung]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Chess is not about money. It's about being happy. (sorry I couldn't resist)

[Gary Ruben]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Wining makes me happy.

[Dan Troff]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Fascinating discussion... ...everyone might be interested to know that the interview in that book occurred 3 1/2 years ago. Chess Life online did post some updated pictures, and they did mention that he is a GM elect, but the material is very old. A lot has happened since that interview on September 22nd, 2010. Garry Kasparov started inviting Kayden to come to New York to work with him twice a year for 3 day sessions. From the age of 12 years old, Kayden would spend 3-4 hours presenting his best games to Garry in front of some of the best U21 players in the country and they would critique his games and offer suggestions while he had to defend his choices. Garry also had Kayden help him with a major fundraiser at the New York Athletic Club in the summer of 2012. It was a very high class affair and the elite of the elite were in attendance. Kayden played blitz chess against CEO's, Grandmasters, and it was a great event! Later that year Kayden was selected by Garry to be part of the Young Stars program sponsored by both the Kasparov Chess Foundation and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. This included high level instruction (approximately 200 hours per year) from Grandmaster Alex Chernin (former coach of Fabiano Caruana, Judit Polgar and Alexandra Kosteniuk), and also Opening work with selected Grandmasters throughout the world who are specialists in their openings and current in their theory for the past 2 1/2 years. Also, Kayden had the opportunity to play at Tata Steel earlier this year, and it was an amazing experience to rub shoulders with Aronian, or to ride to the airport after the tournament was completed with Hikaru Nakamura.

So has it been worth it? Absolutely! Kayden loves it, and because of that we push forward. Becoming a Grandmaster is nice, but it is - in a way- a beginning. There is a ton of learning and work to be done as he heads towards the future and we could not ask for better resources to figure out what he needs to learn next. Happy chess to all!

PS. Kayden won the Silver Medal in the U12 World Youth Championship in Haldikiki Greece and the Gold Medal in the U14 in Maribor Slovenia. Check out Kayden's Facebook page or his website at kaydentroff.blogspot.com to see a couple of other fun projects that he has been working on - including being presented a 1,500 lb chocolate chess set on a television program called The Little Chocolatiers, and also a Youtube Chess music video.

[John Coleman]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Wining makes me happy.

Gary, you missed out the 'h'... it's spelt "whining".

[Gary Ruben]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Gary, you missed out the 'h'... it's spelt "whining".

That too, John, and you're no slouch at whining either.

When I was a junior in the 50's, winning was the same as now. Whoever's parents could afford to sent them to events was the winner.

[Cheney Chen]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

Fascinating discussion... ...everyone might be interested to know that the interview in that book occurred 3 1/2 years ago. Chess Life online did post some updated pictures, and they did mention that he is a GM elect, but the material is very old. A lot has happened since that interview on September 22nd, 2010. Garry Kasparov started inviting Kayden to come to New York to work with him twice a year for 3 day sessions. From the age of 12 years old, Kayden would spend 3-4 hours presenting his best games to Garry in front of some of the best U21 players in the country and they would critique his games and offer suggestions while he had to defend his choices. Garry also had Kayden help him with a major fundraiser at the New York Athletic Club in the summer of 2012. It was a very high class affair and the elite of the elite were in attendance. Kayden played blitz chess against CEO's, Grandmasters, and it was a great event! Later that year Kayden was selected by Garry to be part of the Young Stars program sponsored by both the Kasparov Chess Foundation and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. This included high level instruction (approximately 200 hours per year) from Grandmaster Alex Chernin (former coach of Fabiano Caruana, Judit Polgar and Alexandra Kosteniuk), and also Opening work with selected Grandmasters throughout the world who are specialists in their openings and current in their theory for the past 2 1/2 years. Also, Kayden had the opportunity to play at Tata Steel earlier this year, and it was an amazing experience to rub shoulders with Aronian, or to ride to the airport after the tournament was completed with Hikaru Nakamura.

So has it been worth it? Absolutely! Kayden loves it, and because of that we push forward. Becoming a Grandmaster is nice, but it is - in a way- a beginning. There is a ton of learning and work to be done as he heads towards the future and we could not ask for better resources to figure out what he needs to learn next. Happy chess to all!

PS. Kayden won the Silver Medal in the U12 World Youth Championship in Haldikiki Greece and the Gold Medal in the U14 in Maribor Slovenia. Check out Kayden's Facebook page or his website at kaydentroff.blogspot.com to see a couple of other fun projects that he has been working on - including being presented a 1,500 lb chocolate chess set on a television program called The Little Chocolatiers, and also a Youtube Chess music video.

Nice update, Dan. Thanks so much...I had ever read a few articles by Kayden about his experience with Kasparov in a camp holding by US Prodigies Elite Training Program, really got impressed...

I have couples of questions:

1. it says Kayden spends 6 hours a day on chess, does it mean Kayden do that every day? so he spends all time after school on chess? He must be extremely crazy on chess, right?:) Did he ever fall in love with computer games like other boys did? ;)

2. Kayden showed his talent when he was very young, he actually understood chess by himself at age 3, that's amazing. With Kayden's success on chess today, which part do you think played more important role, his talent or his hard work?

[Ken Kurkowski]

Re: GM Kayden Troff and what parents do to support

This fellow (and his parents) seems to have a much bigger commitment to chess than most in North America. If his goal is to follow in the footsteps of say Hikaru Nakamura (i.e. a top twenty or so player, at least), good. If he ends up like Josh Waitzkin, for one, abandoning chess for other interests in his early twenties, then I do question whether all the money and time was worth it. I guess I have a problem with the idea of making a professional-type commitment to something that's only going to be a relatively casual hobby.