Grigory Serper

Association	Soviet Union (until 1991) Uzbekistan (1992–1996) United States (since 1996)
Born	September 14, 1969 Tashkent , Uzbekistan
title	Grand Master (1992)
Current  Elo rating	2522 (September 2020)
Best Elo rating	2587 (January 2000)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Grigory Serper (born September 14, 1969 in Tashkent as Grigori Jurjewitsch Serper , Russian Григорий Юрьевич Серпер ) is an American chess player and coach of Uzbek origin.

Life

At the age of six Serper learned the game of chess from his grandfather. From 1985 he attended the famous Botvinnik chess school in Moscow , and in 1989/1990 he was European Junior Champion in the Dutch city ​​of Arnhem . After the collapse of the Soviet Union , he started for his home country Uzbekistan and represented it at the Chess Olympiads in Manila in 1992 and in Moscow in 1994 , as well as in the 1993 World Team Championship . The greatest success was second place in Manila behind the Russian team. In December 1993 Serper took part in the PCA qualification competition in Groningen , which was to determine the participants in the candidates' tournament for the 1995 World Chess Championship . With only five points from eleven games, however, he did not get beyond the 30th place with 54 participants.

In January 1996 Serper emigrated with his family to the United States and took citizenship there. Three years later he had another successful time in chess, when he won the renowned World Open in Philadelphia in 1999 and reached the final of the US chess championship. At the National Open in Las Vegas in March 2000, he took a multiple first place. In November and December of the same year he played for the FIDE World Championship in New Delhi . He managed to get into the third round before he had to admit defeat to Alexander Grishchuk with ½: 1½. In the United States Chess League , Serper played for the Seattle Sluggers from 2006 to 2009 .

Serper - who is close friends with Gregory Kaidanov and Michail Gurewitsch - passes on his knowledge in workshops, regularly writes articles on the website chess.com and has been active in the Internet Chess Club for many years .

Elo development

Game example

Serper – Nikolaidis

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Position after 20. Bb5 !!

Serper is considered to be an extremely creative attacking player who does not shy away from various sacrifices in order to gain an advantage. He played the following game in 1993 at the St. Petersburg Open with the white pieces against the Greek grandmaster Ioannis Nikolaidis . A jury of the chess informator selected it as the second best game of the 666 games presented in the 59th volume of the series. Larry Christiansen it assessed as his sixth favorite attacking game in the 1990s and Yasser Seirawan wrote: "Is a game imaginable in which to all his characters sacrifices? In addition , you convert two pawns and have a game for the ages! "

Serper – Nikolaidis 1-0

St. Petersburg, 1993

King's Indian Defense , E70

1. c4 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Nge2 Nbd7 6. Ng3 c6 7. Be2 a6 8. Be3 h5 9. f3 b5 10. c5 dxc5 11. dxc5 Qc7 12. 0–0 h4 13.Nh1 Nh5 14.Qd2 e5 15.Nf2 Nf8? Seirawan recommends 15.… Nf4 16. Nd3! Bh6 17. a4! with advantage for white. 16. a4 b4 17. Nd5! Avoiding the calm 17. Ncd1 or 17. Na2, White sacrifices a piece in order to have two movably connected passed pawns in the fifth row . 17.… cxd5 18. exd5 f5 19. d6 19. Qxb4 would allow Black to simplify after 19.… Rb8 20. Da3 e4 with a doubtful position. 19.… Qc6 20. Bb5 !! Diagram. Another sacrifice to prevent Black from building a successful blockade . 20.… axb5 21. axb5 Qxb5 Black gives some material to block White's pawn. After 21.… Qb7 22. c6 Rxa1 23. cxb7 Rxf1 + 24. Kxf1 Bxb7 25. Nd3 Nd7 26. Qc2 e4 27. Qc7 or 22.… Qb8 23. b6 Rxa1 24. Rxa1 Bd7 25. Qd5! Nf6 26.c7 win. 22. Rxa8 Qc6 23. Rfa1! f4 24. T1a7! Nd7 Not 24.… fxe3? 25.Qd5! Qxd5 26.Rxc8 #. Now Black threatens to bring his king to safety by castling , so White sacrifices further material. 25.Rxc8 + !! Qxc8 26.Qd5! fxe3 27.Qe6 + Kf8 28.Rxd7! exf2 + 29. Kf1 De8 30. Rf7 +! Another sacrifice to enable your own d-pawn to convert . After 30. Qxe8 +? Kxe8 31. Re7 + Kf8 32. c6 Ng3 +! 33. Kxf2 Nf5 White could not convert his passed pawns. 30.… Qxf7 31. Qc8 + De8 32. d7 Kf7 33. dxe8 = Q + Rxe8 34. Qb7 + Re7 35. c6! e4! 36. c7 e3 37. Qd5 + Kf6 38. Qd6 + Kf7 39. Qd5 + Kf6 40. Qd6 + Kf7 41. Qxe7 + Kxe7 42. c8 = Q Lh6 43. Qc5 + Ke8 44. Qb5 + Kd8 45. Qb6 + Kd7 46. Qxg6 e2 + 47. Kxf ! 48. Ke1! 1-0

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Grigory Serper's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
2. ↑ Grigory Serpers results at the World Team Championship on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Numbers according to FIDE Elo lists. Data sources: fide.com (period since 2001), olimpbase.org (period 1971 to 2001)
4. ↑ Šahovski informator , Volume 60, 1994, p. 6.
5. ^ Larry Christiansen : Storming the Barricades . London , 2000, p. 154.
6. ^ Yasser Seirawan : Winning Chess Combinations . London , 2006, p. 161.

Web links

• Playable chess games by Grigory Serper on 365Chess.com (English)
• Grigory Serper at the World Chess Federation FIDE (English)
• Playable chess games by Grigory Serper on chessgames.com (English)
• Replayable chess games by Grigory Serper on chesstempo.com (English)
• Profile of Grigori Serper at the Internet Chess Club (English)