27 Facts About Gata Kamsky

Gata Kamsky is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and a five-time US champion.

Gata Kamsky played almost no FIDE-rated games between 1997 and late 2004.

Gata Kamsky competed in the Candidates Tournament in 2011, losing to Boris Gelfand.

Gata Kamsky was born in Novokuznetsk in Russia, in a Tatar family.

Gata Kamsky earned his National Master title in that year.

Gata Kamsky won the Soviet under-20 championship in 1987 and 1988.

In 1989, he moved to the United States with his father Rostam, a former boxer who dominated Gata Kamsky, made him study chess almost exclusively, and acted as his coach and manager.

Gata Kamsky did well at other prestigious chess tournaments, winning the Las Palmas tournament in 1994.

Gata Kamsky played in both, and in both cases qualified for the respective Candidates Tournaments.

In September, 1994 Gata Kamsky beat Nigel Short in the semifinals in Linares, Spain.

Gata Kamsky then attended and graduated from law school at Touro Law Center in New York.

Gata Kamsky's next rated games after his loss to Karpov were in 1999, when he returned to play in the FIDE Knockout World Championship event in Las Vegas, where he played a first-round, two-game match against the eventual tournament winner, Alexander Khalifman.

Gata Kamsky won the first game, lost the second game, and then lost the rapid play-off games.

Gata Kamsky retired from the world of chess for eight years, except for a two-game match in 1999.

Gata Kamsky did not play another game in public until June 15,2004, when he participated in the 106th New York Masters, playing four games in a day with a time control of 30 minutes for all his moves.

Gata Kamsky was rated number 19 in the world on the April 2005 FIDE Elo rating list, at 2700.

Gata Kamsky retained this rating on the July 2005 list, but moved up to number 18, after a good unbeaten result at the 2005 HB Global Challenge tournament, held in Minneapolis in May, 2005.

Gata Kamsky has since returned to international chess, most notably finishing second behind Veselin Topalov at the M-Tel Masters event.

Gata Kamsky's victory earned him a match against world number-one Veselin Topalov in 2009 for the right to challenge for the World Chess Championship 2010 against world champion Viswanathan Anand.

Gata Kamsky played board one for the United States in the 2008 Chess Olympiad, held in Dresden, Germany in November.

Gata Kamsky participated in the Chess World Cup 2009 but was upset in the third round by Wesley So.

In January 2010 Gata Kamsky won the 52nd Reggio Emilia chess tournament.

Gata Kamsky became US Champion on May 25,2010, after winning a rapid playoff game with second-place finisher Yury Shulman.

From April 13 through April 18,2011, Gata Kamsky participated in the United States Championship, where he was the top seed.

Gata Kamsky won the tournament for the second consecutive year, becoming the first player since Lev Alburt in 1985 to win consecutive US Championships; the title was his third career United States Championship.

The candidates tournament began with best-of-four game match format in May 2011 in Kazan, with Gata Kamsky facing Veselin Topalov in the quarterfinals.

In May 2012, Gata Kamsky participated in the 2012 US Championship, where he was seeded second behind defending champion Hikaru Nakamura.