Julio Becerra Rivero (born October 15, 1973) is a Cuban-born American

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 ...

Grandmaster who lives in South Miami, Florida. Julio Becerra was born and grew up in Havana, Cuba. He learned to play chess when he was thirteen years old. Julio Becerra went to the chess academy in Havana frequently to play games with others and to improve. He became a grandmaster at the age of 23 in 1997. Julio Becerra won the

Cuban Chess Championship In the second part of the 19th century, Celso Golmayo Zúpide had been generally accepted as Cuban champion since his 1862 match defeat of Félix Sicre. In 1912–1937 Cuban Championship as Copa Dewar occurred. Maria Teresa Mora was the first ...

in 1996 and 1998 and played in the Chess Olympiads of

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

and

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

. He stayed in the U.S. in 1999, after playing in the

FIDE World Chess Championship 1999 The FIDE World Chess Championship 1999 was held at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip between 31 July and 28 August 1999. The championship was won by Russian Alexander Khalifman, making him the FIDE World Chess Champion. Format The format was ...

in Las Vegas. He lived in Las Vegas, North Carolina and New York until he moved to Miami in 2004. He was MVP in the U.S. Chess League in 2006. He became the Florida Champion in 2006, and held that title through 2009. He won his 8th Florida Championship in 2016. Julio Becerra is a chess teacher and an active tournament player in Florida. He currently has over 20 private students. He also played for the Miami Sharks in the

U.S. Chess League The United States Chess League (USCL) was the only nationwide chess league in the United States for eleven years. In 2016 the League announced it would be opened to cities from around the world, moved to the website chess.com, and renamed the Pro ...

. As a user of

chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

, Becerra was noticed by many for his willingness to play games against people considerably weaker than himself, thus giving many novice and amateur players the chance to play against a grandmaster. As a result of this, a fan club was set up in his honor. Julio Becerra also has an even score against Hikaru Nakamura and Wesley So (two of the top chess players in the United States).

References

External links

* * *
Julio Becerra
profile at the

United States Chess Federation The United States Chess Federation (also known as US Chess or USCF) is the governing body for chess competition in the United States and represents the U.S. in FIDE, the World Chess Federation. US Chess administers the official national rating s ...

Living people 1973 births Chess grandmasters Cuban chess players American chess players {{Cuba-chess-bio-stub