Tal Shaked

Tal Shaked (born February 5 1978) is an American chess grandmaster. Shaked was the 1997 World Junior Champion.

Shaked developed his chess skills in the scholastic chess organizations of Tucson, and was already in the K-6 group at age 7. As a junior, Shaked won several national scholastic championships, the U.S. Cadet, the U.S. Junior Open and the National Open. In 1997 Shaked won the World Junior Championship scoring six wins and seven draws. John L. Watson played a substantial role in his coaching.

Tal Shaked eventually gave up competitive chess, though he remained active with blitz on the internet. His last serious competition was the FIDE World Chess Championship 1999, and he had already decided to leave chess prior to that tournament due to motivation and the economic uncertainty in being a professional chess player. He now works as a software engineer for Google.

External links

*fide|id=2007991
*chessgames player|id=12119

Reference

*"Where Have You Gone, Rachels, Shaked & Rao?", September 2008 issue of Chess Life. [http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8677/365/ Online (USCF membership required)]