My Chess History

My current rating, title and ambition
Tournament Highlights
Strong players I've beaten
Other chess-related achievements
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My rating, title and ambition

Current title: FM. Now retired from tournament play, my ambition is to help others achieve their goals in chess as a coach!

Current USCF rating: 2244. My peak was 2376 but took a dip in my last year of play.

Current FIDE rating: 2265.

Tournament Highlights

2003 Eastern Open,
Washington, DC.
tied 4th place, just missing 1st in a last-round time scramble with GM Alex Sherzer.

2002 Midland Open,
Kenilworth, England.
clear first place, defeating GM Mark Hebden.

1999 Eastern Open,
Washington, DC.
tied 4th place, defeating two IM's en route.

1996 Mass Open, Boston, MA.
tied 2nd place.

1995 US Amateur Team East, Somerset, NJ.
5.5/6 on second board, unfortunately not good enough for a prize!

1994 Pan Ams, Providence, RI.
first board prize with 5.5/6, defeating the first two GM's I played over the board, probably my career highlight.

1994 World Open,
Philadelphia, PA.
shared 1st place with 7.5/9, Under 2200 Section, certainly my most lucrative day as a chessplayer.

1992 Harvard Freshman Intramural Chess Tournament, Cambridge, MA.
won in a very long and memorable elimination playoff over Jeremy Martin and Oliver Tai, two very talented players.

1992 US Junior Open,
Bradford, PA.
tied for 3rd place.

1992 World Open,
Philadelphia, PA.
tied for 3rd place with 7/9, Under 2000 Section.

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Strong players I've beaten in tournament play

GM Mark Hebden
(Midland Open, 2002).

GM Gennady Zaitchik
(World Open, 2001).

IM Igor Khmelnitsky
(US Amateur Team East, 2001).

IM Rico Mascarinas
(Liberty Bell Open, 2001).

IM Eugene Meyer
(Eastern Open, 1998).

IM Ed Formanek
(Eastern Open, 1998).

GM Gennady Sagalchick
(Pan-Ams, 1994).

GM Ilya Gurevich
(Pan-Ams, 1994).

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Other chess-related achievements

2001 "Chess Braintwisters" by Burt Hochberg.
An unorthodox problem I composed was published in this book.

2000 Chess Life. CJA (Chess Journalists of America) Award.
"Best Analysis" prize in the "general" category went to my article "A most memorable game," originally published in the March-April 2000 edition of Chess Horizons. This article is available elsewhere on this website.

1996 "M21" Masters of the 21st Century.
Chess teacher and WWW consultant. The organization was devoted to teaching chess for talented children, since studies have shown this can be instrumental in developing young minds in a variety of important ways.

1995-96 Chess Horizons (MA).
I annotated numerous games for this publication, which can be found elsewhere on this website.

1995 Chess Horizons (MA).
In an article on college chess tournaments, I was named "Undoubtedly the collegiate chess player of the year [1994]."

1994-96 H3 Publications, Cambridge, MA.
I served as an editorial assistant for the American Chess Journal and for Patrick Wolff's book on Kasparov-Anand 1995, and acted as web consultant for H3. I also wrote an article on Karpov, which was regrettably never published, but which is now available on this website.

1991 American School of Chess.
A training ground for "top 50 list" players at the Marshall Chess Club. We had lectures with the late GM Edmar Mednis and various training activities.

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