{"id":3084,"date":"2017-04-27T01:07:09","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T09:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/?p=3084"},"modified":"2017-04-27T19:20:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T03:20:44","slug":"derek-zhang-becomes-national-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/derek-zhang-becomes-national-master\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Zhang becomes National Master"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3085\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3085\" style=\"width: 660px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3085 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy-785x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"660\" height=\"861\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy-785x1024.jpg 785w, https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy-230x300.jpg 230w, https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy-768x1001.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/IMG_8831-Copy.jpg 1274w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3085\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">National Master Derek Zhang<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;After reaching 2100 USCF in 2015, my chess progress stagnated, but over these past few months I was able to put all the pieces together and reach 2200. My real breakthrough tournament was 3 months ago at the Golden State Open, where I scored 2.5\/3 against FMs in the last 3 rounds to win the U2300 prize. After that, I knew it was just a matter of time until I reached NM, and in 2 more tournaments I had achieved my goal. It\u2019s taken a while, but I\u2019m glad I finally got there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>-Derek<\/p>\n<p>Congratulations to <strong>Derek Zhang<\/strong> of Bellevue, Washington, who achieved a 2200 U.S. Chess rating as a result of scoring 5 of 7 points in the U2200 section at the 11th Annual Philadelphia Open, Philadelphia, Pa., April 12-16. \u00a0Here is a link to the crosstable:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201704167042.2\">http:\/\/www.uschess.org\/msa\/XtblMain.php?201704167042.2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;After reaching 2100 USCF in 2015, my chess progress stagnated, but over these past few months I was able to put all the pieces together and reach 2200. My real breakthrough tournament was 3 months ago at the Golden State Open, where I scored 2.5\/3 against FMs in the last 3 rounds to win the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,5],"tags":[231,230],"class_list":["post-3084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholastic","category-tourn","tag-derek-zhang","tag-national-master"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwchess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}