Gregory Serper

Gregory Serper (Russian: Григорий Юрьевич Серпер) (born September 14, 1969) is a Grand Master of chess.

He was born in Tashkent, in the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union (present Uzbekistan). At age 6, he learned to play chess from his grandfather. In 1985, at age 16, he started studies at Moscow's famous Botvinnik-Kasparov Chess School.

During his military service in Novosibirsk, he attended the 27th World Junior Chess Championship held in 1988 in Adelaide, Australia. In this strong tournament Serper took 3rd place with same score 9/13 as his opponents Lautier, Ivanchuk and Gelfand who took 1st, 2nd and 4th place respectively.

In 1992, as a member of the Uzbekistan team, Serper won the silver medal in the 30th Chess Olympiad.

In January 1996 he moved with his family to the United States. In 1999, Serper won the World Open tournament after drawing an Armageddon playoff game as Black against Boris Gulko, who had been one of nine players who had tied with Serper in the main event. In the same year, he advanced to the finals of the U.S. Chess Championship by defeating Alex Yermolinsky in the semifinals, but lost in the finals to Gulko.

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