Grandmaster Gregory Serper

GM Gregory Serper (b. September 14, 1969) originates from Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Serper's grandfather, a huge chess fan, taught Gregory to play when he was six years old. In 1984, at just 15, he defeated his first grandmaster. His talent was noticed and at age 16 Gregory became a student at Moscow's famous Botvinnik-Kasparov Chess School for the best Soviet juniors. Gregory attended that school for more than two years before being drafted into the Soviet army.

In January 1996, Gregory joined relatives who had moved to the States and wasted no time by winning the Philadelphia's World Open in 1999 and made his successful debut that same year in the U.S. Championship, defeating Alex Yermolinsky in the semifinal but losing to champion Boris Gulko.

The new millennium has been good to Gregory so far with shared victories in both the National and World Open. His chief hobby besides chess is TV: "I am a typical couch potato." Gregory teaches chess over the Internet or in person or at chess camps together with his colleagues Kaidanov and Gurevich. He hopes that he can pass along what his coaches taught him: "How to think. That is most important in chess � and in life!"

View his rating and tournament history.