Florin Felecan (born 7 April 1981, in Brasov) is a

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

. Born in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

, he resides in

Skokie, Illinois Skokie (; formerly Niles Center) is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, neighboring the City of Chicago's northern border. Its population, according to the 2020 census, was 67,824. Skokie lies approximately north of Chicago's do ...

, having moved there on July 17, 1997, along with his family.

Chess career

Felecan is a multiple-time former junior national champion of Romania. In 1994, he tied for first in the U14 European Championships with a 7/9 points performance. He won the 1998 National Denker Tournament of High School Champions in Hawaii with 5/5 record. He served as one of four advisors on the World team in the

Kasparov versus The World Kasparov versus the World was a game of chess played in 1999 over the Internet. It was a , in which a World Team of thousands decided each move for the black pieces by plurality vote, while Garry Kasparov conducted the white pieces by himself. Mo ...

chess match in 1999. Felecan attended University of Maryland - Baltimore County (UMBC) on a chess scholarship from 1998 until 1999. He played first/second board and led UMBC to the Pan-American team Championship in Dallas (1998) and Toronto (1999), but left shortly thereafter. He intermittently played chess from 2000 through 2002, then stopped playing until May 2006. Felecan began actively seeking his International Master title after being contacted by organizer Sevan Muradian. Felecan achieved the three required title norms between April 2009 and July 2009. He became the third person to earn all three required title norms at the North American FIDE Invitational series organized by Sevan Muradian, behind IM Mehmed Pasalic (the first person to achieve this) and GM Marc Arnold (the second person to achieve this for his IM title). IM Felecan worked in a non-chess related occupation until 2011 when he actively became a full-time chess coach for youth and adult players. On the March 2013 FIDE list his

Elo rating The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor. The Elo system was invented as an improved ch ...

was 2375. In 2016, he tied for first in the Chicago Open Under-2400 section beating Grandmasters

Eugene Perelshteyn Eugene Perelshteyn (born 1980) is an American chess player and writer. He earned the FIDE titles#FIDE Master (FM), FIDE Master title in 1997, the International Master title in 2001, and the Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster title in 2006. Born in ...

and Holden Hernandez in the process. His 6/9 result was the best result for any player in the state of Illinois.

External links

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Romanian Chess Federation

FIDE Title Applications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Felecan, Florin 1980 births American chess players Chess International Masters Living people Romanian emigrants to the United States Romanian chess players People from Brașov