Yasser Seirawan

Yasser Seirawan, born in Damascus in 1960,
is a Syrian-American chess grandmaster, four-time US champion, author and commentator.
He learned chess at the age of 12 and won the World Junior Championship in 1979, aged 19;
he earned the grandmaster title in 1980.
Seirawan won the US Championship in 1981, 1986, 1989 and 2000.
He qualified for the Candidates events of the 1985 and 1988–1990 World Championship cycles
and represented the United States at ten Chess Olympiads, winning individual gold in 1994
and individual silver medals in 1980 and 2002.
A long-standing member of the world elite, Seirawan reached number ten in the world rankings in 1990
and defeated both Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov in tournament games during their respective reigns as World Champion.
Alongside his playing career, he became renowned as a chess author, journalist and commentator.
His most important publications include the Winning Chess series, co-authored with Jeremy Silman,
and his autobiographical work Chess Duels.
In 2006, Seirawan was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.