Chess career
Felecan is a multiple-time former junior national champion of Romania. In 1994, he tied for first in the U14 European Championships with a 7/9 points performance. He won the 1998 National Denker Tournament of High School Champions in Hawaii with 5/5 record.
He served as one of four advisors on the World team in the Kasparov versus The World chess match in 1999.
Felecan attended University of Maryland - Baltimore County (UMBC) on a chess scholarship from 1998 until 1999. He played first/second board and led UMBC to the Pan-American team Championship in Dallas (1998) and Toronto (1999), but left shortly thereafter. He intermittently played chess from 2000 through 2002, then stopped playing until May 2006.
Felecan began actively seeking his International Master title after being contacted by organizer Sevan Muradian. Felecan achieved the three required title norms between April 2009 and July 2009. He became the third person to earn all three required title norms at the North American FIDE Invitational series organized by Sevan Muradian, behind IM Mehmed Pasalic (the first person to achieve this) and GM Marc Arnold (the second person to achieve this for his IM title).
IM Felecan worked in a non-chess related occupation until 2011 when he actively became a full-time chess coach for youth and adult players.
On the March 2013 FIDE list his Elo rating was 2375. In 2016, he tied for first in the Chicago Open Under-2400 section beating Grandmasters Eugene Perelshteyn and Holden Hernandez in the process. His 6/9 result was the best result for any player in the state of Illinois.
Grandmaster (GM) is a title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life, though exceptionally the title can be revoked for cheating.
Étienne Bacrot is a French chess grandmaster, and as a child, a chess prodigy.
Ray Robson is an American chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2010. Robson fulfilled the requirements for the title in 2009 at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 16 days, making him the youngest ever United States Grandmaster at the time.
Yuri Shulman is a Belarusian American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). He also goes by the alternate spelling of "Yury Shulman." He's married to the Woman International Master (WIM) Viktorija Ni.
Tal Shaked is an American chess grandmaster who is best known for winning the World Junior Championship in 1997.
Pascal Charbonneau is a Canadian chess grandmaster. He has won two Canadian Chess Championships, in 2002 and 2004, and has represented Canada in five Chess Olympiads: 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.
Lone Pine International was a series of chess tournaments held annually in March or April from 1971 through 1981 in Lone Pine, California. The tournaments were formally known as the Louis D. Statham Masters, named after sponsor Louis D. Statham (1907–1983), an engineer and millionaire inventor of medical instruments who was also a Los Angeles based chess aficionado. The events were seven- to ten-round Swiss system tournaments, with entrance requirements that made them the strongest recurring Swiss tournaments in the U.S. in the 1980s. Grandmaster Isaac Kashdan served as the tournament director.
Robert Lee Hess is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 2009. In May 2012, his FIDE rating was 2635, fifth in the United States. Hess is a commentator for Chess.com, covering events such as the World Chess Championship and Candidates Tournament. He also streams chess content on his Twitch channel GMHess, which has 73,000+ followers.
A chess title is a title regulated by a chess governing body and bestowed upon players based on their performance and rank. Such titles are usually granted for life. The international chess governing body FIDE grants several titles, the most prestigious of which is Grandmaster; many national chess federations also grant titles such as "National Master". More broadly, the term "master" can refer to any highly skilled chess player.
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and norms. Once awarded, titles are held for life except in cases of fraud or cheating. Open titles may be earned by all players, while women's titles are restricted to female players. Many strong female players hold both open and women's titles. FIDE also awards titles for arbiters, organizers and trainers. Titles for correspondence chess, chess problem composition and chess problem solving are no longer administered by FIDE.
Awonder Liang is an American chess prodigy. He is the third-youngest American to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, at the age of 14. Liang was twice world champion in his age category.
Conrad William Holt is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in September 2012.
John Michael Burke is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). A chess prodigy, Burke reached an Elo rating of 2601 or 2603 in September 2015, making him the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2600 or above. However, he has consistently been rated below 2600 again since 2016, as of 2023.
Akshat Chandra is an American chess player. He started playing Chess during a visit to India in 2009 when he was nine years old. In 2015, he won the US National K-12 Championship and was also the US Junior Champion, the first time both titles were held by the same person in a single year. He earned the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in March 2017.
Razvan Preotu is a Canadian chess player who holds the Chess title of Grandmaster.
Abhimanyu Mishra is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he became the youngest player ever to qualify for the grandmaster title on June 30, 2021, at the age of 12 years, 4 months, and 25 days, beating Sergey Karjakin's record of 12 years and 7 months, which had stood since 2002.
Nicolas de T. Checa is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). He is from Dobbs Ferry, New York. A chess prodigy, he began playing competitive chess at age 7. He is the recipient of the 2020 and 2021 Samford Fellowships, an award granted to the top American chess players under 25 years old. He is the 2021 and 2022 Connecticut State Champion and an undergraduate student at Yale University.
Eric Rosen is an American chess player. He was awarded the FIDE Master title in 2011 and the International Master title in 2015. Rosen began playing chess as a child with his father and brother and became the United States Chess Federation (USCF) K12 national champion in 2011. While attending the University of Illinois, Rosen was on the chess team that secured a spot at the President's Cup in 2013 and 2014.
Jason Liang is an American chess player. He has held the titles of National Master since 2018, FIDE Master since 2019, and International Master since 2021. In 2022, he received the Arthur Award for Chess Excellence from the Eade Foundation. In May 2023, he was selected to receive a Samford Fellowship by the U.S. Chess Trust. He was ranked World #33 junior chess player by FIDE on April 1, 2023.
Luka Budisavljević is the youngest Grandmaster in the history of Serbian chess. Budisavljević fulfilled requirements for achieving highest chess title Grandmaster on 29 November 2020 when he was exactly 16 years, 10 months and 7 days old, becoming the first Serbian who managed to get such an achievement before 17th birthday.
