Yasser Seirawan ( ar, ياسر سيروان; born March 24, 1960) is a Syrian-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 and four-time
United States champion. He won the
World Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament (players must have been under 20 years old on 1 January in the year of competition) organized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
The idea was the brainchild of William Rits ...
in 1979. Seirawan is also a published chess author and commentator.
Early life
Seirawan was born in
Damascus
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,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. His father was Syrian and his mother an English nurse from
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...
, where he spent some time in his early childhood. When he was seven, his family immigrated to
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
, where he attended Queen Anne Elementary School,
Meany Middle School, and
Garfield High School. He honed his game at a now-defunct coffeehouse, the
Last Exit on Brooklyn
The Last Exit on Brooklyn was a Seattle University District coffeehouse established in 1967 by Irv Cisski. It is known for its part in the history of Seattle's counterculture, for its pioneering role in establishing Seattle's coffee culture, ...
, playing against the likes of
Latvia
Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...
n-born master
Viktors Pupols
Viktors Pūpols (born July 31, 1934) is an American chess master. Known by many local players as "Uncle Vik," he frequently plays at the Tacoma Chess Club. He was the Club Champion in 1955, and some of his games can be viewed online at the club ...
and six-time
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
State Champion James Harley McCormick.
Career
Seirawan began playing chess at 12; at 13, he became Washington junior champion. At 19, he won the
World Junior Chess Championship
The World Junior Chess Championship is an under-20 chess tournament (players must have been under 20 years old on 1 January in the year of competition) organized by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
The idea was the brainchild of William Rits ...
. He also won a game against
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ( rus, Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, p=vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a Soviet (before 1976) and Swiss (after 1980) chess grandmaster (GM) and chess writer. H ...
, who had two years earlier narrowly lost a match for the world championship. Impressed, Viktor then invited Seirawan to Switzerland, where Korchnoi was training for his
1981 world title match against
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
.
Seirawan qualified for the 1985 and 1988-1990
Candidates Tournaments. In the 1985 tournament in Montpellier he scored 7/15 placing joint 10th, and in the
1988–1990 tournament in St John, a knockout tournament, he was knocked out by
Jon Speelman
Jonathan Simon Speelman (born 2 October 1956) is an English Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster chess player, mathematician and chess writer.
Early life and education
He was educated at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read Mathematics.
Caree ...
in the preliminary round.
In 1990, he won a match against Jan Timman sponsored by KRO by the score of +3-1=2.
For 12 years, he was the chief editor of the ''Inside Chess'' magazine. The magazine was sold to the
ChessCafe.com ChessCafe.com is a website that publishes endgame studies, book reviews and other articles related to chess on a weekly basis. It was founded in 1996 by Hanon Russell, and is well known as a repository of articles about chess and its history.
It ...
website, on which old articles were featured.
In 1999, Seirawan played a ten-game match against
Michael Adams in
Bermuda
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. The match was drawn +2–2=6.
In 2001, Seirawan released a plan called "Fresh Start" to reunite the chess world, which at that time had two
world champions:
Ruslan Ponomariov
Ruslan Olehovych Ponomariov ( uk, Русла́н Оле́гович Пономарьо́в; born 11 October 1983) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He was FIDE World Chess Champion from 2002 to 2004. He won the Ukrainian Chess Championship in ...
had gained the title under the auspices of
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
, while
Vladimir Kramnik had beaten
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...
to take the Classical title. It called for one match between Ponomariov and Kasparov (the world number one), and another between Kramnik and the winner of the 2002 Einstein tournament in
Dortmund, who turned out to be
Péter Lékó
Peter Leko ( hu, Lékó Péter; born September 8, 1979) is a Hungarian chess player and commentator. He became the world's youngest grandmaster in 1994. He narrowly missed winning the Classical World Chess Championship 2004: the match was draw ...
. The winners of these matches would then play each other to become undisputed World Champion. This plan was signed by all parties on May 6, 2002 in the so-called "Prague Agreement". The Kramnik-Leko match took place (the match was drawn, with Kramnik retaining his title); the Kasparov-Ponomariov match was canceled in 2003, and this particular plan became moot when Kasparov retired in 2005. In the end, the
FIDE World Chess Championship 2006
The World Chess Championship 2006 was a match between Classical World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik, and FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. The title of World Chess Champion had been split for 13 years. This match, played between Sept ...
between Kramnik and
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion.
Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by wi ...
reunited the world championship title.
Following a series of events, such as Seirawan participating in the Beijing Chess Challenge in September 2003, there were reports that he would be retiring as a professional player. In the July 2007
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
list, Seirawan had an
Elo rating of 2634, placing him in the top 100 chess players in the world, and America's number four, behind
Hikaru Nakamura
Christopher Hikaru Nakamura[Gata Kamsky
Gata Kamsky ( tt-Cyrl, Гата Камский, italics=no; russian: Гата Камский; born June 2, 1974) is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and a five-time U.S. champion.
Kamsky reached the final of the FIDE World Chess Cha ...](_blank)
, and
Alexander Onischuk
Alexander Onischuk (; born September 3, 1975) is a Ukrainian-American chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1994, and won the 2006 U.S. championship.
Career
In 1991 Onischuk finished second in the world under 16 cha ...
. He played six games in the July 2007 FIDE update.
In 2007, Seirawan unveiled a
chess variant
A chess variant is a game related to, derived from, or inspired by chess. Such variants can differ from chess in many different ways.
"International" or "Western" chess itself is one of a family of games which have related origins and could be co ...
created in collaboration with Bruce Harper, called
Seirawan chess
Capablanca chess (or Capablanca's chess) is a chess variant invented in the 1920s by World Chess Champion José Raúl Capablanca. It incorporates two new pieces and is played on a 10×8 board. Capablanca believed that chess would be played out ...
or SHARPER chess. SHARPER chess introduces two additional pieces, a "hawk" and an "elephant"—a rook/knight and a bishop/knight combination that in other variants are called the
Empress and
Princess
Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince.
Princess as a subst ...
, respectively. The initial position is that of standard chess. Whenever the player moves a piece from its starting position, one of the extra pieces in hand may be placed immediately on the square just vacated. Likewise, pawns may
promote to a hawk or an elephant in addition to the standard pieces. The first ever event was a 12-board simultaneous exhibition held on March 31, 2007 in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, British Columbia, Canada.
In May 2011, Seirawan returned from hiatus to competitive chess, playing for the U.S. team in the world team championship in China, where he won silver in first alternate. He had wins versus top GMs
Judit Polgar
Judit is a feminine given name related to Judith. Notable people with the name include:
*Judit Bar-Ilan (1958–2019), Israeli computer scientist
*Judit Elek (born 1937), Hungarian film director and screenwriter
*Judit Földing-Nagy (born 1965), ...
and
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov
Shahriyar Hamid oghlu Mammadyarov ( az, Şəhriyar Həmid oğlu Məmmədyarov; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. he is ranked No. 1 in Azerbaijan and No. 13 in the world. ...
. He only lost one game.
Seirawan won the 2011 and 2012 Dutch Open Blitz championship.
Seirawan is widely known for his expert commentary in live broadcasts on the Internet during important events. He has been named by the chess historian
Edward Winter as one of the top five Internet broadcasters. In 2019, he joined the Chessbrahs and provided coverage for the 2019 World Cup.
Books
Seirawan has written several books.
The "Winning Chess" series (with co-author
IM Jeremy Silman):
*''Play Winning Chess'' - Introduction to chess and some basic strategies
*''Winning Chess Tactics'' - Introduction to tactics with puzzles
*''Winning Chess Strategies'' - How to use small advantages and use strategies to gain them
*''Winning Chess Openings'' - Brief descriptions of the most popular openings, and opening strategies
*''Winning Chess Endings'' - Introduction to the endgame
*''Winning Chess Brilliancies'' - Notable games analyzed by the author
*''Winning Chess Combinations'' - How to recognize the main combination patterns; somewhat of a follow up to ''Winning Chess Tactics''
The "Winning Chess" series was originally published by
Microsoft Press
Microsoft Press is the publishing arm of Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the ...
; it is now published by
Everyman Chess
Everyman Chess, formerly known as Cadogan Chess, is a major publisher of books and CDs about chess. "Everyman" is a registered trademark of Random House and the company headquarters is in London. Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is the ...
.
*''Five Crowns: Kasparov-Karpov World Chess Championship 1990 New York - Lyon'' (with Jonathan Tisdall), International chess Enterprises, 1991.
*''Take My Rooks'' (with Nikolay Minev), International Chess Enterprises, 1991.
*''No Regrets • Fischer–Spassky 1992'' (with George Stefanovic), International Chess Enterprises, 1992,
*''Chess on the Edge'' (with Bruce Harper) - collected games of Grandmaster
Duncan Suttles
Duncan Suttles (born 21 December 1945) is a Grandmaster of chess who was the strongest Canadian player between the eras of Abe Yanofsky and Kevin Spraggett. He is one of the few over-the-board grandmasters who also holds the title of Grandmas ...
, published by
Chess'n Math Association
The Chess'n Math Association (or Chess and Math Association) is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing chess into Canadian schools. Founded in 1985 by Larry Bevand, who still serves as its executive director, it bills itself as "Canada's ...
in March 2008.
* ''Chess Duels: My Games with the World Champions'',
Everyman Chess
Everyman Chess, formerly known as Cadogan Chess, is a major publisher of books and CDs about chess. "Everyman" is a registered trademark of Random House and the company headquarters is in London. Former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov is the ...
, 2010,
Personal life
Seirawan is married to
Woman FIDE Master
A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...
Yvette Nagel, daughter of Dutch politician
Jan Nagel.
Legacy
The famous chess opening
Seirawan attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Bg5) is named after this top 1980s player.
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
*
*
*
*
*
Seirawan ChessEnhanced Chess Devised by Yasser Seirawan in 2007
by
Mikhail Golubev for GrandMaster Square
Lectures by GM Yasser Seirawan at the St. Louis Chess Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seirawan, Yasser
1960 births
Living people
Chess grandmasters
American chess players
American chess writers
American male non-fiction writers
World Junior Chess Champions
Chess Olympiad competitors
Chess variant inventors
Garfield High School (Seattle) alumni
People from Damascus
American people of English descent
Syrian emigrants to the United States
Syrian people of English descent
Sportspeople from Seattle