Nicholas managed this remarkable feat in 75 tournaments in a time frame of 3 years and 3 months. Nicholas's rise has been nothing short of meteoric...a constant rise with very little stalls or setbacks.   In Nicholas's very first tournament he won the 1st grade championship title in the Northern Cal Regional Championships.  From that time until now, Nicholas captured several prestigious titles including K-3 national champion (won while in 2nd grade), Calchess State Kindergarten, K-3 and K-6 Championships. Nicholas has a  FIDE rating of 2143.  In the last 6 months Nicholas has had a positive score against NM’s including wins against many notable Bay Area NM's.

Richard has taught thousands of kids for the Bay Area, and has been a chess coach for many of the main chess schools in the bay area including Success Chess, Berkeley Chess School, the Mission San Jose Chess Team, and probably many others that I don’t know about.  .Richard has always had a non-political stance in the highly political bay area chess scene, and has always had unselfish motivations in promoting and teaching chess. By working with many organizations, Richard has set a fine example to many on how chess should be taught and coached to grade school kids.   Richard was teaching and coaching kids using technology and exciting methods, way before the current scholastic chess craze. He inspired many future coaches and organization leaders including myself.

Although he is rarely recognized as such,  Richard is one of the best coaches in the country for grade school kids. His mentors for teaching chess include  C.J.S Purdy, Ruben Fine, and Paul Morphy. The bay area definately has its share of micreants in the scholastic chess scene...profiteers, liars, thieves, pretend chess masters etc. etc...one thing is for sure in the wild west chess scene Richard Shorman is definately one of the good guys.