Rafael Duailibe Leitão (born 28 December 1979) is a Brazilian

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 ...

player. He is a grandmaster in both over-the-board chess and

correspondence chess Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, traditionally through the postal system. Today it is usually played through a correspondence chess server, a public internet chess forum, or email. Less common ...

. Leitão is a seven-time Brazilian champion. He competed in the FIDE World Championship in 1999, 2000 and 2004 and in the

FIDE World Cup The FIDE World Cup refers to three different events over the years. Since 2000, it has been a major chess event organized by FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Since 2005, it has been a 128-player single-elimination chess tournament, form ...

in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013 and 2015.

Chess career

Leitão won the

World Youth Chess Championship The World Youth Chess Championship is a FIDE-organized worldwide chess competition for boys and girls under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. Twelve world champions are crowned every year. Since 2015, the event has been split into "World Cade ...

in the U12 category in 1991 and in the U18 category in 1996. Leitão also won the

Brazilian Chess Championship Following are the official winners of the national Brazilian Chess Championships from 1927 to date. The 1998 championship was held 9–19 December in Itabirito, Minas Gerais State. The field of sixteen played a series of two-game single-eliminati ...

in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2004, 2011, 2013 and 2014. He played for Brazil in the

Chess Olympiad The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and ...

s of 1996, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018. He won the silver medal on board three at the

37th Chess Olympiad The 37th Chess Olympiad ( it, Le 37° Olimpiadi degli scacchi), organized by FIDE and comprising an openAlthough commonly referred to as the ''men's division'', this section is open to both male and female players. and a women's tournament, as we ...

in 2006.

Correspondence chess

Leitão started playing correspondence chess via the

International Correspondence Chess Federation International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) was founded on 26 March 1951 as a new appearance of the International Correspondence Chess Association (ICCA), which was founded in 1945, as successor of the Internationaler Fernschachbund (IF ...

in 2009, becoming an ICCF International Master in 2011 and an ICCF Grandmaster in 2012. By finishing second in the third Candidate Tournament, Leitão qualified for the 26th Correspondence World Championship, eventually finishing third with a score of 9.5/16.

References

External links

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Interview with GM Rafael Leitao
by Chessdom 1979 births Living people Chess grandmasters World Youth Chess Champions Chess double grandmasters Brazilian chess players Chess Olympiad competitors People from São Luís, Maranhão Sportspeople from Maranhão 20th-century Brazilian people 21st-century Brazilian people {{Brazil-chess-bio-stub