June Cover Stories with Chess Life: GM Jesse Kraai

June Cover Stories with Chess Life: GM Jesse Kraai

June Cover Stories with Chess Life: GM Jesse Kraai

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The June edition of “Cover Stories with Chess Life” is now live! This monthly podcast, now hosted by Chess Life and Chess Life Online Editor John Hartmann, goes in depth and behind the scenes of each month’s Chess Life cover story.

This month’s guest is GM Jesse Kraai, who wrote the cover story on “Chess & Coronavirus” for our June issue.  While the main topic of discussion is chess in the age of COVID-19, we also talk about his book Lisa: A Chess Novel, his ideas on improvement, and his work with Chess Dojo.

GM Kraai also recorded an audio version of his cover story, which can be heard in this video at our YouTube channel.

GM Kraai born May 6, 1972 is a chess Grandmaster living in Baltimore, MD. Kraai reached GM status in 2007.[1] He was the first American-born player to achieve the title since Tal Shaked in 1997.[2]

Kraai won the 1987 National Junior High School Championship, tied for first in the 1988 National High School Championship, and won the Denker Tournament of High School Champions in 1989 and 1990. In 2007, he won the chess state championship of New Mexico for the fifth consecutive year.[3]

Kraai was born in Santa Fe; he received his B.A. from Shimer College in 1994, his M.A. in philosophy from the University of Jena, Germany in 1996, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Heidelberg in 2001. His dissertation examined the influence of Georg Joachim Rheticus on the development of Copernican theory.[4]

In 2013, Kraai published Lisa: A Chess Novel (ISBN 0976848902). He had retired from teaching chess for three years in order to write the novel.[5]

Congratulations to Mario García González who was the winner of the “Best Question” contest. Mario receives a $50 gift certificate from uscfsales.com for submitting his question. Keep an eye on US Chess social media at Facebook and Twitter for a chance to win next month, when we interview IM Vignesh Panchanatham for the July edition of “Cover Stories.”