Alejandro Ramírez (chess player)

Alejandro Ramirez
Full name Alejandro Ramirez
Country United States
Born June 21, 1988
San José, Costa Rica
Title Grandmaster
FIDE rating 2591 (May 2015)
(No. 231 in the January 2015
FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating 2601 (December 2013)

Alejandro Tadeo Ramírez Álvarez (born in San José, Costa Rica, June 21, 1988) is a United States chess Grandmaster, having transferred from Costa Rica in 2011. At the age of 15, he became the first Centro-American to achieve the Grandmaster chess title and second youngest chess grandmaster at the time.

He graduated from the University of Texas in Dallas with a Masters Degree in Arts & Technology / Design and Production of Videogames.

FIDE Master

Ramírez started playing chess at the age of four after watching the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and was shown the moves by his father, Jorge Ramírez.

In 1998, at the age of nine, Ramírez obtained the title of FIDE Chess Master when winning the gold medal in the Pan-American Chess Championship Sub-10 held in Florianopolis.

International Master

Ramírez obtained the title of International Master at the age of 13 when winning 6½ points in the Sub-zonal Tournament held in Managua, Nicaragua in November 2001.

Grandmaster

At the age of 13, Ramírez achieved a draw against Russian Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich during the 35th Chess Olympiad, held in Bled in 2002.

Alejandro Ramírez

Ramírez obtained his first grandmaster norm at the age of 14 when gaining 7 points out of 9 at the Capablanca in Memoriam Tournament held in Havana, Cuba, in May 2003. The second norm was obtained at the age of 15 when tied for first place (together with GM Lenier Dominguez from Cuba) in the Zonal Tournament 2.3 held in Guayaquil, Ecuador, in August 2003. This result earned Ramírez a spot in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004.

He obtained his third norm at the age of 15 gaining 7 points in the Los Inmortales Tournament at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in November 2003. FIDE awarded Ramírez the grandmaster title during its January 2004 Assembly, making him the first and only chess grandmaster from the centro-American area.

Ramírez won first place in the Morelia Open 2008 and first place in the US Chess Open 2010 held in Irvine, California.

In May 2013, he placed second in the U.S. Chess Championship behind Gata Kamsky. After scoring 6½/9 (along with Kamsky), he drew the first two playoff games before losing an Armageddon game where he had 19 minutes and 45 seconds against Kamsky's 45 minutes.

External links

Chess prodigies at Chessbase http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=2858