Tal Shaked

Tal Shaked ( born February 5, 1978) is an American Grandmaster of chess and the Junior World Champion in 1997.

Shakeds career began in 1997 after his victory at the U.S. Junior Championships in June, he won a month later, surprising the Junior World Championships under 20 in Żagań (Poland). As an International Master with an Elo rating of 2500, he worked for 78 participants, the number 15 of the seedings, but finally won with 9.5 points from 13 games and then was Grand Master. He let players such as Alexander Morozevich this ( 12th place) and the FIDE World Champion 2004, Rustam Kasimjanov ( 9th place) behind.

Due to this success Shaked was invited in the same year for the traditional tournament of Tilburg (Netherlands ), which later co-winner Garry Kasparov before the tournament - unsuccessfully - to prevent attempted: Kasparov - then with a Elo of 2820 - was afraid because of the low rating section of the tournament, which was lowered by participating Shakeds to point losses his Elo rating. Shaked played to its potential, scored in 11 games just 3 draws and was last, his game against Kasparov he lost with the white pieces in just 20 moves. In an interview after the tournament Kasparov comments as derogatory, so he could play against players like van Wely, Piket and in particular Tal Shaked without problems simultaneously chess.

The following year, Shaked was qualified as Junior World Champion for the FIDE World Chess Championship 1997/98. The tournament was played in knockout mode, it failed in the second round by the Russians Sergei Rubljowski. Shaked has since become little more internationally active.