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 dist ...
South Miami, Florida
South Miami is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida in the Miami metropolitan area. The population was 11,657 at the 2010 census and as of 2019, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, was 11,911.
South Miami's central business district is directl ...
. 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 1996 and 1998 and played 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 an ...
s 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 sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...
,
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...
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 s ...
. He stayed in the U.S. in 1999, after playing in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1999 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.
As a user of chess.com, 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
Christopher Hikaru NakamuraWesley So (two of the top chess players in the United States).
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 ...