The Daily Blog

9-Year-Old Becomes Youngest US Chess Master.

A 9-year-old California boy has become the youngest American to earn the title of “national master” in chess.

Samuel Sevian of Santa Clara earned the United States Chess Federation title at a match in San Francisco on Dec. 11, the federation’s website says. He earned a rating of 2,201, just over the threshold of 2,200 to become a “national master.”“It feels good,” Samuel, a fourth-grader at Don Callejon School, told the San Jose Mercury News.

He moved up from chess “expert,” a title he got at age 8, by besting the previous record holder, Nicholas Nip of San Francisco. Samuel beat Nicholas to the record by 11 days.Samuel, who turns 10 Sunday, has been playing since he was 5. “I like the tactics and the combinations,” he said.

Samuel plays chess with his father, Armen Sevian, 37, also an avid chess player at the “expert” level. The family is from Armenia, where chess players are held in high esteem.

“In Armenia, chess is very big,” Armen Sevian told the Mercury News. “It’s certainly not a geek sport. Chess players are compared to rock stars.”

Each day, Samuel spends at least two hours studying chess moves in books, playing chess with his father and practicing, via Skype, with his coach in Los Angeles.

Shane Mosley Says Fight With Manny Pacquiao ‘Done’ Deal.

Manny Pacquiao will defend his WBO welterweight title against Shane Mosley on May. 7 in an HBO pay-per-view fight from the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Mosley told FanHouse Tuesday evening.

The 32-year-old Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 knockouts) also holds the WBC junior middleweight (154 pounds) belt, but that is not on the line, according to Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs) and Top Rank Promotions CEO, Bob Arum .”It’s done. I’m fighting Many Pacquiao on May 7,” said the 39-year-old Mosley.

“We came to an agreement today, in fact, just a few minutes ago. Bob Arum, James Prince and I,” said Mosley. “We sat down, and we came to an agreement. The only thing that I have to do now is to sign it. Bob Arum is writing it all up right now.”

Mosley was the main subject of conversation as the next opponent for the WBO welterweight champ during last week’s meetings between Pacquiao, Arum and Pacquiao’s adviser Michael Koncz. It produced a counter proposal that had been presented to Mosley’s adviser James Prince for approval, Koncz told FanHouse on Tuesday.

Mosley was chosen over 37-year-old WBO and WBA lightweight king Juan Manuel Marquez (51-5-1, 38 KOs) and 27-year-old WBC welterweight belt-holder Andre Berto (27-0, 21 KOs), Mosley said.Mosley also confirmed that his purse, up front, stands to be around $5 million against Pacquiao. But with incentives, Mosley could wind up earning a career-high amount, surpassing the previous career-best of $7 million that he pocketed after his unanimous decision loss to Floyd Mayweather (41-0, 25 KOs) back in May, who received a non-heavyweight record guarantee of $22.5 million.

“That’s still accurate. We came to an agreement with everything involved, including the financial end of it,” Mosley said of the numbers pertaining to his purse.

College Football Bowl Matchups 2010.

Undoubtedly Oregon and Auburn will headline the postseason bowl schedule when they meet in the BCS title game Jan. 10 in Glendale, Ariz.

The other BCS bowls:

Fiesta - Oklahoma vs. UConn
Rose - Wisconsin vs. TCU
Orange - Virginia Tech vs. Stanford
Sugar - Ohio State vs. Arkansas

Besides the five BCS bowls, there are several other intriguing matchups among the 35 bowl games that begin on Dec. 18 in Albuquerque, N.M., with Brigham Young and UTEP meeting in the New Mexico Bowl.

New Year’s Eve will feature two of the better non-BCS bowls in El Paso, Texas, and Atlanta. The Hyundai Sun Bowl will pit Miami and Notre Dame in a game that should pull down huge TV ratings. Also, the Chick-fil-A Bowl features Florida State against old nemesis Steve Spurrier, now at South Carolina.

In all there was 72 bowl eligible teams for 70 bowl berths. Temple, which went 8-4 and defeated Big East champion UConn, did not receive a bowl berth. Western Michigan (6-6) was the other bowl eligible team that didn’t earn a bowl berth.

The SEC received 10 of the 70 bowl berths, followed by ACC (nine), Big Ten (eight), Big 12 (eight), Big East (six), Conference USA (six), Mountain West (five), MAC (four), WAC (four), Pac-10 (four), Sun Belt (three) and all three independents (Army, Navy and Notre Dame).

Miss USA Winner Who Had Title Stripped Dies in LA.

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 10) - Leona Gage, who in 1957 was named Miss USA but had the title stripped the next day when pageant officials learned she was married and a mother of two, has died in Los Angeles, her son said Saturday. She was 71.

Gage died of heart failure after spending several weeks at a Sherman Oaks hospital on Tuesday, son Robert Kaminer told the Associated Press.

Like Vanessa Williams and Carrie Prejean decades later, Gage’s pageant scandal probably brought her more fame than if she had kept the crown.Born Mary Leona Gage in Texas, she was appeared as Miss Maryland USA in the competition in Long Beach, Calif.

Gage also lied about her age - telling pageant officials she was 21 when she was 18.

She told reporters after winning that she didn’t even have a boyfriend.

“I want to wait until I’m 26 before I become seriously interested in the opposite sex,” she said, according to the Baltimore Sun.

Just a day later her story was exposed. She had been already been married twice, both times at age 14 - the first was quickly annulled - and had her second child at 16, all forbidden for the resume of a pageant contestant.

Gage said she was used to such secrets. She had hidden her first pregnancy from her strict Baptist mother for as long as she could.

“To my mother, that was the biggest scandal there could be,” Gage told the Sun. “All my life, she said, ‘Don’t you dare go into the bushes with a boy and get yourself pregnant.’”

Gage took advantage of the attention that came with the lost tiara and made many television appearances, including a highly rated appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

While winning the affection of Sullivan and much of the nation, Gage got plenty of hate mail too.

“I think one half of the U.S. hated me,” she told the Sun.

After losing the trophy, prize money, trips and studio contracts that went to first runner-up Miss Utah, she pursued an acting career. But that didn’t take off.

She had a difficult life in subsequent decades: Six failed marriages, lost custody of her five children, two of whom died before her, drug abuse and suicide attempts.

But Kaminer said she was proud to have had five children who went on to prosperous lives, including a commercial real estate agent and a lieutenant-colonel in the army.