Meet the six-year-old chess whizz who’s already won two major junior titles
18:03, 3 MAR 2016 UPDATED 18:04, 3 MAR 2016
BY KATY PAGAN
Carolina Espinosa Cancino, from South Ayrshire, comes from a line of champions, with three older siblings who are international players
A six-year-old schoolgirl is causing a sensation in the normally staid world of chess – by beating adult competition to land two major titles in just a month.
Little Carolina Espinosa Cancino, who has been playing since she was two, likes nothing more than singing along to her favourite musical, Annie or the soundtrack to Disney film Frozen.
But when the chess board comes out she switches into junior master mode, leaving opponents more than three times her age trailing in her wake.
Carolina, a pupil at Sacred Heart Primary school in Girvan, South Ayrshire, has won the 2016 Scottish Junior Chess Tournament.
She played for five gruelling hours before taking the title. Then, last week, she scooped another junior title at a championships held in Croy, Lanarkshire., beating adult players.
Carolina comes from a long line of chess champions and was taught by her father, entrepreneur Jose Miguel Espinosa.
She is following in the footsteps of her older siblings, Miguel, 20, Cristina, 19, and Monica, 15, who are all already international chess players.
Carolina’s proud mother Cristina, 49, said: “The practice of chess promotes values such as tolerance, critical thinking and self-esteem.
“Carolina knows that chess is a game of strategy that requires concentration of attention, memory, creativity, imagination, sense of responsibility and emotional control.
“Carolina knows that talent is 10% of the base and the remaining 90% is work.”
Full article here.
God bless Carolina.