Samuel Shankland

Shankland (2016)
Surname	Samuel L. Shankland
Association	United States
Born	October 1, 1991 Berkeley
title	International Master (2008) Grand Master (2011)
Current  Elo rating	2691 (August 2020)
Best Elo rating	2731 (February 2019)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Samuel L. Shankland (born October 1, 1991 in Berkeley ) is an American chess grandmaster .

Life

The team of the USA (Olympic champion 2016) with the cup that Samuel Shankland holds up.

Samuel Shankland played his first chess tournament at the age of ten. In 2006 he won the title of National Master . In July 2008, he became the youngest player to win the California Championship. In September 2008 he came third at the World Youth Championship and became an international champion . In 2009 he won the California championship again and scored his first two grandmaster norms at tournaments in New York and Philadelphia. In July 2010 he won the USA Junior Championship. From 2010 to 2014 he completed a degree in economics at Brandeis University .

In April 2011 he came in third place at the national championship of the USA and thus reached his last required grandmaster norm. The title was awarded to him in June 2011. In September 2011 Shankland caused a sensation when he eliminated the favored Péter Lékó with 1.5: 0.5 in the first round of the Chess World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk . However, in the second round he lost to Abhijeet Gupta .

With the national team of the United States he took part in the 2014 Chess Olympiad and achieved the best individual result of the reserve players, in 2013 he won the Pan-American team championship with the US selection, at the team world championship in 2015 he played on the top board of the USA.

In the United States Chess League , he played for the San Francisco Mechanics from 2006 to 2009 , with which he became champions in 2006 , and from 2010 to 2013 for the New England Nor'easters , with which he won the championship in 2010 . In the German Bundesliga , Shankland played for SV 1930 Hockenheim in the 2018/19 season .

Together with the USA team, he won the 2016 Chess Olympiad in Baku .

In 2018 he won the United States Championship , the 53rd Capablanca Memorial in Havana and the American Continental Championship.

Game example

Kaidanov – Shankland

	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

Final position after 18.… Bc5

Here is a short game from the 2011 US Championship. Shankland defeated Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov with the black pieces in just 18 moves.

Kaidanov – Shankland 0-1

St. Louis , April 16, 2011

Semi-Slav Defense , D45

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 b6 7. Bd3 Bb7 8. 0–0 Be7 9. b3 0–0 10. Ne5 h6 11. f4 c5 12. Bb2 cxd4 13. exd4 dxc4 14. Bxc4 Nxe5 15. fxe5 Qxd4 + 16. Kh1 Qh4 17. Bc1 Ng4 18. Bf4 Bc5 0: 1

Works

• Small Steps to Giant Improvement (2018, ISBN 978-1-78483-051-9 ).
• Small Steps 2 Success - Mastering Passed Pawn Play (2019, ISBN 978-1-78483-090-8 ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ US College Student Makes a Stand at the World Cup , New York Times, September 3, 2011.
2. ↑ Samuel Shankland's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
3. ↑ Samuel Shankland's results at the Pan American team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ↑ Samuel Shankland's results at the World Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Samuel Shankland's profile at USCL (English)
6. ↑ Team of the USA (Olympic Champion 2016) on Chess-Results.com (English)

Web links

Commons : Samuel Shankland  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Samuel Shankland at the World Chess Federation FIDE (English)
• Replayable chess games by Samuel Shankland on 365Chess.com (English)
• Homepage (English)