Kayden Troff
Kayden Troff is the current Under 14 World Youth Chess Champion, after a gold-medal finish at the World Youth Chess Championships in Maribor, Slovenia, in November 2012. A native of Utah, he also won the silver medal in the 12/under section at the World Youth Chess Championships in Greece in 2010.
Additional international tournament victories by Kayden include gold at the 2009 North American Youth Championship for under age 12 in Mazatlán. He also became a FIDE Candidate Master in Mazatlán. Kayden became a National Master at the American Open in November 2009, at age 11 and a FIDE Master in 2011. He earned his third and final norm to become an IM-Elect at the Metropolitan International tournament in Los Angeles in August, 2012. He became an International Master in January 2013.
Kayden first demonstrated chess ability at the age of three; having learned to play by watching his father (Daniel Troff) teach and play against his brothers. When Troff turned six, his father decided to have him tutored by Grandmaster Igor Ivanov, who was impressed with how well Kayden played.
Kayden has participated in multiple training sessions with Garry Kasparov in New York and was selected to the Young Stars - Team USA program, a joint partnership between the Kasparov Chess Federation (KCF) and the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, which was launched to find and train the country's top emerging chess players for competition with the best players in the world. Kayden has been in frequent training sessions with GM Alex Chernin, who works under the direction of Garry for Kayden's chess development. Additionally Kayden has been training with GM Sam Shankland as a sparring partner for the past year. Kayden has won multiple Utah Scholastic and adult Utah Championships.
Kayden's latest project is a chess music video set to a cover of Adele's Skyfall music featuring a famous Kasparov - Topolov game with a LIVE chess set. It will be completed and put on Youtube during the first two weeks of April. To see advance pictures of the music video - they are featured on Kayden's Facebook fan page titled "Chess Champion Kayden Troff" or on his Twitter feed at chesschampkt.
Additionally there is much more info on Kayden’s website at kaydentroff.blogspot.com or visit his Youtube channel: Piecefulchaos. Kayden also writes a regular chess blog on Chess.com who help sponsor Kayden's chess. Kayden's Chess.com blog http://www.chess.com/blog/KaydenTroff has over 150,000 views.
The Troff family runs a popular "TNT" Chess Camp in the Salt Lake City area, along with their family friend Scott Treiman, who won the 2012 Utah State High School championship tournament.