Country Australia FIDE rating Role Chess Player | Title Grandmaster Name Ian Rogers Education University of Melbourne | |
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Born 24 June 1960 (age 63)
Hobart ( 1960-06-24 ) Books First Dictionary of Microcomputing | ||
Ian Rogers (born 24 June 1960, Hobart, Tasmania) is an Australian chess grandmaster (1985) and FIDE Senior Trainer (2005).
Contents
Career
Rogers is regarded as the first Australian to become a chess grandmaster (Walter Browne achieved the title earlier, but grew up in the USA and represented Australia only from 1969-72). Rogers attained the Grandmaster title in 1985 after becoming an International Master in 1980. He was Australia's highest rated player for over twenty years, and represented Australia at fourteen Chess Olympiads (twelve of them on first board).
Rogers won more than a hundred and twenty tournaments including fifteen round-robin grandmaster tournaments. He won the Australian Chess Championship four times - in 1980, 1986, 1998, and 2006. He retired on medical advice in 2007. Among his career highlights are three consecutive victories from 1988 to 1990 in the grandmaster tournament in Groningen (outright by a clear point in 1988 and 1989, and jointly in 1990).
Before turning professional, Rogers completed a BSc (Meteorology) from the University of Melbourne. He is married to Cathy Rogers, herself an International Arbiter, Woman FIDE Master, and a lawyer. Throughout his competitive career and more so since his retirement from competitive chess in July 2007, Rogers has reported on many tournaments for various media outlets, with photographic assistance from Cathy Rogers. He was a panelist for BBC television during their 1993 World Championship coverage and covered numerous major championships for news agency Reuters. Rogers has also worked as a public commentator at high level tournaments around the world.
He is a distant cousin of Australian cricketer Chris Rogers.
Chess strength
Rogers' peak international ranking was 50th in the world in 1999, and he was the highest ranked Australian player from 1984 until his retirement in 2007. His best single performance was at Groningen, 1989 where he scored 6.5/9, a point ahead of Viswanathan Anand.