2012 U.S. Championship Player Bios

Synopsis: Alexander Onischuk has won more than 20 tournaments, including the 2000 Ukrainian Championship. He became a Grandmaster in 1994 at the age of 19 and relocated to the U.S. in 2001. When he won the 2006 U.S. Championship, he called it the happiest moment of his career to have his name on a trophy alongside players such as Fischer and Morphy.

Onischuk, the 2010 SPICE Cup Champion, was key to America’s bronze medal finishes in 2006 and 2008 Olympiads. He has an impressive international record: He placed second in the 2007 International Chess Festival in Biel and also won the super-strong Moscow Open in January 2009. He delivered a gold-medal performance on board two at the 2009 World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey. 

Bio: Alexander Onischuk called winning the 2006 U.S Championship the happiest day of his life. Not that he's unused to winning. Alex placed first in more than 20 tournaments, from super strong Round Robins in exotic Beijing and chilly Siberia to the 2000 Ukrainian Championship. Alex became a GM in 1994 at the age of 19, but this hardly qualified among his happiest moments, because that was a matter of "when, not if."

He is known for his professional, solid style, and is repertoire is very well analyzed, but it is also more predictable than most top U.S. players. Some of his lines as Black (particularly in Double King Pawn games) allow a weaker but well-prepared opponent to force a draw. Such a strategy makes it hard to win clear first in a Swiss, which usually requires a huge plus score. 

Alex ran into a typical roadblock at his first U.S. Championship, where he placed eighth. One opponent traded queens into a dead draw, following a previous game by Alex. The advantage of having a stable opening repertoire is that you're bound to know the strategies and details of your lines better than if you played four different openings.

Alex thinks that what separates him from Grandmasters of a slightly lower stature is his superior understanding of the game, gained from working with elite players, including former World Champions Anatoly Karpov and Veselin Topalov. In addition to seconding Karpov in matches against Anand (1997) and training him for his victorious match against Kasparov (2002), Alex got the chance to play blitz with the Russian legend. "The first time we played" Alex said, "I won with black, and thought I'd do pretty well. Then I lost 25 games in a row. I was already a GM and didn't think I could lose 25 games in a row to anyone!"

Alex arrived in Baltimore in 2001 on the wings of a diversity visa, which he won in the Diversity lottery program. The program, designed to offer visas to American hopefuls all over the world, may soon be discontinued pending a vote in the Senate. For five years he played for the championship college team, University of Maryland Baltimore Country (UMBC), while studying linguistics at the university. He graduated in the spring of '06.

If he could play any champion from history, he would play Paul Morphy. "I'd play 1...e5, and he'd go for the King's Gambit," he said. "I'd probably lose."

Bio: Grandmaster Robert Hess is one of a handful of promising young stars on the U.S. chess scene. Hess was awarded the International Master title in 2007. He achieved his first norm for the Grandmaster title in Foxwoods 2008 and earned the final two in quick succession at the SPICE Spring Invitational and Foxwoods 2009. 

Robert swept the 2009 High School Championship in Nashville, where he also led his high school, Stuyvesant, to a team victory. After being awarded a wild card berth to the 2009 U.S. Championship, Robert, originally seeded 17 out of 24 players, put on a remarkable performance to fall just short of the championship with a second-place finish. In 2011, he turned in an amazing performance to make it to the four-player knockout final, where he ran into a roadblock, ultimately securing a fourth-place finish.

Two years ago, Hess was awarded the Samford Chess Fellowship and is finishing up his first year at Yale University.

Robert strives to play innovative and creative games, a trait that makes him a dangerous competitor. Like Bobby Fischer, Robert dislikes the prevalence of memorizing lines of theory too deeply. Rather, he strives to introduce theoretical novelties that bring his opponents out of book. He is a big proponent of Fischer Random chess (or Chess 960, a variation of chess that randomizes the back row with a few rules and guidelines. Under these rules, there are 960 different back-row configurations). 

For the past 11 years, Hess has been under the tutelage of GM Miron Sher. He traveled with the U.S. team to the World Team Championship in Bursa, Turkey, in January where he served as an alternate and helped prepare the other players for their games each day. The U.S. team took home silver medals thanks to their incredible team work.

Robert is in his first year at Yale University.

In his advice for developing chess students, Robert says to avoid using the computer too much, try to play up a section or two, and try doing other things besides chess as you develop.

Synopsis: Varuzhan Akobian is a strong Armenian-American player who emigrated to the U.S in 2001. In 2002, he won the Samford Chess Fellowship, which allowed him to focus on chess for two years. It paid off: Akobian reached his first long-time goal of becoming a Grandmaster in 2004. Var is known for being a great team player: He was a member of the bronze medal Olympiad teams in 2006 and 2008. He also represented the U.S. team in Bursa, Turkey at the 2009 World Team Championship where he helped the U.S. earn silver medals. He was featured on MTV’s “True Life” series. Akobian is the highest-ranked Californian player.

Bio: 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."

Varuzhan moved to Los Angeles in 2001. Recently he moved from Glendale, dominated by Armenian-Americans to North Hollywood, which he feels is less crowded and more diverse. Var felt accepted immediately as an immigrant who didn't know much English. "There is so little racism in America compared to what I've experienced in any other country." Still he misses Armenian relatives and fresh food. "The fruits, beef and vegetables taste better there. It's all natural." The downside is that every food has its season. "In Armenia, there is no watermelon in winter."

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. 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).

Varuzhan is the highest rated player in the state of California. A true Californian, he goes to the gym five times a week, is learning to speak Spanish and has a passion for motor-vehicles.

Bio: Alejandro Ramírez was inspired by the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer when he was four years old. He became FIDE Master at the age of 9, an International Master at the age of 13 and a Grandmaster at the age of 15. He is studying at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) pursuing a master degree in Arts & Technology and is also a member of the Dallas Chess Club, serving as the ranking officer on the club's Facebook page. After graduation he plans to combine his two passions in life: chess and video games.

On August 8, 2010, Ramirez won the U.S. Open Chess Championship.

Bio: Alex Lenderman first started playing chess with his grandfather when he was 9. From 2004-2007, he attended Edward R. Murrow high school in Brooklyn, NY, and was a member of the super-team that won four straight, national high-school titles. The journey of this high-school, chess dream team was documented in the 2007 book The Kings of New York, by Michael Weinreb.

Since that time, Alex has been a formidable force in the chess world and has solidified himself as a young rising star. In 2008, he managed to barely edge GM Sergey Kudrin to win the USCF's Grand Prix, and in 2009, he ran away with the competition. He played in the 2010 U.S. Championship in Saint Louis, and is looking to make his mark at this year's event. Lenderman has been playing an exciting brand of chess as of late and will be a formidable contender in this year's championship.

In the summer of 2009, Alex earned three GM norms in a little more than a month's time:

• Copper State International Tournament in Mesa, Ariz.: May 29-June 3
• Philadelphia International Tournament: June 25-29
• World Open in Philadelphia: July 5