2013 U.S. Championship Player Bios

Originally from Uzbekistan, Grandmaster Timur Gareev is a formidable opponent with unlimited potential. Coming off an undefeated, first-place performance at the 2012 North American Open, Gareev has proven that he has the ability to make a serious run at the U.S. Championship title.

"My grandfather taught me how to play chess at the age of four," Gareev said. "I practiced the game regularly challenging my father, friends, and schoolmates. At the age of eight I played my first rated competition. I started succeeding in my improvement very fast winning most of the national events."

At the age of 10, Timur said he was playing expert level strength, dedicating 4-6 hours every day mastering the game on his own and working with his coach Georgi Borisenko.

"Soviet Master Borisenko had coached and collaborated with World prominent grandmasters and world champions including Nona Gaprindashvilli, Semen Furhman, Mark Taimanov, Naum Rashkovsky," Gareev said. "It was an honor to receive the knowledge of classical chess school. At the age of 12, I went for my first serious international event and conquered the title of Asian Champion U-14 years old at Bikaner, India."

In 2004 at the age of 16, he earned the distinction as the youngest-ever grandmaster from Asia. He traveled to the United States for school and joined the chess team at the University of Texas at Brownsville's from August 2005 to August 2006 where he helped the team win its first national championship. In 2007 he tied for 1st with Vladimir Egin and Anton Filippov in the Uzbekistani Chess Championship. Gareev studied Business & Accounting at the University of Texas at Brownsville, where he received his B.A. degree in 2011. He was awarded the Samford Fellowship last year, which awarded him a monetary stipend to assist his chess development.

Timur is an exceptional blindfold player, and he recently conducted a 27-board blindfold simul in Hawaii. He is still training to conduct an even larger simul, and he has been quoted as saying that blindfold training has helped him improve his focus.

Image courtesy Wikimedia commons user Luciana Morales

Ray Robson is a member of the Webster University chess team that recently captured the 2013 national collegiate chess championship. Ray learned chess at age 3 and has earned seven national scholastic titles since. Robson finished in the top 10 at the World Youth Championship from 2004 to 2007 and won Super Nationals in 2005. He defeated his first Grandmaster in 2006, the same year he earned the USCF National Master title.

He's the youngest GM in the U.S. and is widely considered to be America's brightest hope to become an elite GM since Hikaru Nakamura. In fact, Ray broke Hikaru's record and currently holds the title as the youngest-ever American Grandmaster, fulfilling the requirements about two weeks prior to his 15th birthday. 

Ray's first-ever major open tournament win came in 2008 at the Miami Open. He received his first norm in Tromso, Norway in August of 2009, and he earned his second in Skokie, Illinois that same month. He earned his last GM norm in Montevideo, Uruguay in October 2009.

He has turned in a number of impressive performances as of late and appears poised to make a statement at this year's championship.

The weather was so harsh in the years that Armenian-American Grandmaster Varuzhan Akobian spent in Mongolia, that his father forbade "Var" and his sister Armine, from playing outside. He taught them chess, a perfect indoor distraction. "From the very beginning" Var says, "I was different from other chess kids. It was never just a game for me. I always wanted to be a Grandmaster, and knew that I would do what it takes." As a teenager living in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, Varuzhan spent all day playing chess and soccer. His teachers agreed that he could focus on chess, without fear of truancy charges. "This is one way in which Armenia is very different from the United States. If I went to high school here, I never could have spent so much energy on chess."

Varuzhan Akobian qualified to play his first rated tournament, the Armenian Junior Chess Championship in 1992, earning third place in the under 10 section, then went on to take first place the following year. He participated in his first World Chess Championship in Czechoslovakia at the age of 9 and placed eighth.

Varuzhan excels in positional battles and admires the games and style of Armenian hero, World Champion Tigran Petrosian. Var's favorite Black opening, just like Petrosian, is the French Defense. Var's advice to players aspiring to improve is this: "Don't expect to see constant improvement. You build knowledge and work hard, and after a while, you'll see a big breakthrough."

In 2002, Varuzhan won the Samford Chess Fellowship, which allows a talented junior to focus on chess for two years. The prize paid off quickly, as he tied for first in the 2002 World Open and also won the Irme Koenig GM Invitational. The following year, Akobian scored 8/9 to win the 2003 U.S. Junior Closed Championship, winning his first seven games. He was officially awarded the Grandmaster title in June 2004, after which he won the World Open again, clinching it with a sparkling win against Alexander Shabalov. Varuzhan is the first person in the 21st century to win clear first in the World Open (without having to play a blitz playoff).

Recently, GM Akobian moved from sunny California to Topeka, Kansas, where his wife is attending law school at Washburn University. He has joined the Resident GM rotation at the Chess Club and Schoalstic Center of Saint Louis, which brings some of the country's top players to the Chess Club to give private lessons, present lectures and share their chess knowledge witht the club's more than 900 members.

Gregory Kaidanov's first major win came in a Moscow tournament in 1987, and he was awarded the Grandmaster title a year later. Kaidanov moved to the U.S. in 1991. He's racked up a number of tournament championships. Kaidanov was a member of the silver Olympiad team in Russia in 1998, won a silver board medal at the Calvia, Spain Olympiad in 2004 and was a member of the bronze medal Olympiad team in 2006. Kaidanov is one of America's premiere chess coaches. In 2008, he coached the U.S. team to a bronze medal finish at the Women's Olympiad.

Gregory emigrated from Ukraine to the U.S. in 1991, with his three children and wife, to Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington is hardly the epicenter of American chess. How did Kaidanov end up there?

Gregory's first day in America was on a visit in the summer of 1990, in the pre-Guiliani New York, when the city was notorious for a high crime rate. He and his wife were robbed twice in one day! In addition to his savings, he lost 10 years worth of chess analysis. He was devastated. Fortunately, he did not follow his first instinct to give up on the U.S.A. His friend GM Dmitry Gurevich invited him to Chicago, after which Dmitry helped connect Kaidanov with chess organizer Ken Troutman. Troutman organized a series of chess exhibitions for Gregory in Lexington, and sponsored his U.S visa. Rattled from his first traumatic days in New York, he was particularly impressed by the safety in Kentucky.

He barely unpacked his unstolen bags, when he began steam-rolling the U.S Open chess circuit. He won the 1992 World Open in Philly and the 1992 U.S Open. Greg's great first year performances helped develop the "honeymoon theory", that Grandmaster emigrates fare fantastically during their first year in the U.S.A. A decade after his streak, he started an equally amazing one. It began at the 2002 Aeroflot Open in Moscow, sponsored by the eponymous Russian airline. Kaidanov prevailed over 82 (!) other GMs in one of the strongest fields ever assembled.

Kaidanov was born in Ukraine, where his dad taught him the rules of chess at six years old. According to Greg, it's a common American myth that chess was a part of the daily Soviet school curriculum. Still, he's nostalgic for his childhood chess days, where he played after school for hours on end. Gregory was not a teenaged prodigy. His success came after two decades of solid hard work. His first major tournament win came in Moscow 1987, where he crushed Indian star Vishy Anand. He earned the IM title that same year, and was awarded the GM title just a year later in 1988.

Kaidanov is also the most active Grandmaster teacher in America. He travels from Louisiana to California, coaching, giving lectures and conducting simultaneous exhibitions. He is the head coach of the www.uschessschool.com founded in 2006 by IM Greg Shahade. Several times a year, players from all over the country meet up for a one-week intensive training session in Kaidanov's current hometown, Lexington.

After a quick bowl of Raisin brain, Gregory often works on chess alone, or with a student, for 12 hours straight. The ability to study and coach chess for such long hours come from a deep love for the game, and for sharing. “I would never give up coaching, even if the money meant nothing to me." His students range from serious amateurs of all ages to Maurice Ashley, who Kaidanov helped become the first ever African American GM. Kaidanov had a great success in the 2008 Women's Olympiad, where he coached the U.S. team to a bronze medal finish. He is also a frequent coach at the U.S. Chess School.

Despite Kaidanov's many tournament wins and high ranking among U.S players, he has never won a U.S Championship. Students all over the country are rooting for Greg to take his place among the gallery of U.S Champions.