2019 Spring Chess Classic

Var Akobian

Title: 
Grandmaster
Rating: 
2643
Federation: 
USA
Age: 
35
Status: 
Invited
Bio: 

Armenian born American Grandmaster Akobian earned his Grandmaster status at the age of 20.  He was the US Junior Champion in 2003, the winner of World Open in 2002, 2004, and 2007, and helped the US win the Silver Medal at the 2009 World Team Championship.G

Var’s childhood in Mongolia had such harsh winters that his father forbade him and his sister Armine from playing outside.  He taught them chess, which fascinated the young Akobian. “From the very beginning,” Var says, “I was different from the 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,  Akobian spent his days on chess and soccer. His teachers encouraged him to focus on chess, so much that Var says: “If I went to high school in here [in the U.S], I never could have spent so much energy on chess.”

In 2002, a year after immigrating to the U.S., he earned the Samford Chess Fellowship.  The Fellowship grant, which allowed the young Var to study and improve his chess, yielded quick results with a tie for first at the 2002 World Open and First Place at the Irme Koenig GM invitational.  The following year, he won the 2003 U.S. Junior Closed Championship, earned his GM Norms in June 2004, and then won the World Open for a second time.

An excellent positional player, GM Akobian admires the games and style of Armenian Hero, former World Champion Tigran Petrosian.  He admires him so much so that he became an expert in the French Defense, one of Petrosian’s most played openings with the black pieces. Var offers this advice for aspiring club players: “Don’t expect to see constant improvement. You build knowledge and work hard, and after a while you’ll see a big breakthrough.”

In 2007, Akobian was featured on MTV's True Life documentary series, in an episode titled "I'm a Genius".

Vassily Ivanchuk

Title: 
Grandmaster
Rating: 
2717
Federation: 
Ukraine
Age: 
49
Status: 
Accepted
Bio: 

Vassily Ivanchuk is a Ukrainian Grandmaster and the 2016 World Rapid Chess Champion. He won the 1987 European Junior Chess Championship in Groningen. He was awarded Grandmaster in 1988 and was listed among the top 10 players in the world that same year. He has been ranked No. 2 three times (July 1991, July 1992, October 2007). At the age of 21, he won the Linares tournament where he played against 8 of the top 10 players in the world.  In this competition, he defeated World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in their head-to-head game.

He was awarded the Order of the Prince Yaroslav the Wise IV degree by the President of Ukraine in  2011. In recent years, Ivanchuk has started playing checkers and has achieved a certain level of success. In the World Draughts Federation's January 2019 ranking list, he was ranked as number 1233 in the world.

Liem Le

Title: 
Grandmaster
Rating: 
2694
Federation: 
Vietnam
Age: 
28
Status: 
Accepted
Bio: 

Liem was the 2013 World Blitz Chess Champion and Under-14 World Youth Chess Champion in July 2005. He is currently the #1 ranked player in Vietnam. Liem is a valuable asset to the Vietnam Chess team and in the 2012 Chess Olympiad he helped Vietnam place No. 7 overall - the highest ever for Vietnam.

Benjamin Bok

Title: 
Grandmaster
Rating: 
2643
Federation: 
Netherlands
Age: 
24
Status: 
Accepted
Bio: 

Grandmaster Benjamin Bok has been among Netherlands’ top players for a couple of years already. His first major success came in December 2015 by winning the London Chess Classic FIDE Open with 8/9. He debuted for the Dutch national team at the 2016 Chess Olympiad in Baku and also represented his country at the 2017 European Team Championship on Crete.

At the European Championship 2017 he earned himself a spot in the FIDE World Cup 2017 by finishing 15th. A year later, at the European Championship 2018, he repeated this success by finishing 18th and thus already secured his spot for the FIDE World Cup 2019.

Besides being a professional chess player, Benjamin is studying Business at Saint Louis University as of August 2018 and is on their intercollegiate chess team.

2019 Spring Chess Classic

The 2019 Spring Chess Classic is the first of four tournaments each year featuring international chess professionals. The Spring Chess Classic is comprised of two 10-player Round Robin tournaments. Over the course of 10 days, these competitors will battle for more than $30,000 in prize money and gain valuable experience in top-level events.

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