Chess is a game that takes a lot of thoughts and skills. It's quite difficult for ordinary people to win the title of "National Chess Master", and even more difficult for a teenager who has lost half of his brain to do it. 17-year-old Griffin McConnell comes from Colorado, the USA. He started playing chess at the age of four. Recently, he won the title of "National Chess Master" after having his fourth brain operation (手术).

When Griffin was small, he was interested in chess. His passionfor chess made him dream of being a chess player when he grew up. However, Griffin suffered from serious brain diseases and they had a bad effect on his daily life. After discussing with his medical team, Griffin decided to have the first brain operation. During the operation, doctors carefully removed (摘除) about a quarter of the left side of Griffin's brain and separated (分离) the rest from the right half of his brain. In the following years, he had the other three brain operations.

After the operations, Griffin stayed in hospital for a few months. He had to relearn how to walk and speak and do everything on his own again! It was a slow and hard journey and he never used his right arm and hand freely. However, one thing he picked back up quickly after the operations was chess. He never gave up playing chess, even when he faced several terrible brain operations. Griffin said, "I felt like chess was one part of me. I wanted to relearn chess more than I wanted to relearn how to walk and speak."

Although Griffin faced a lot of challenges, he went on to win one chess match after another. He even won the Colorado Scholastic Championship! What an encouraging and excellent chess player he was!