Watu Kobese

Watu Kobese (* June 27, 1973 in Soweto ) is a South African Chess Champion.

Kobese learned chess age of four from his father. As an 8 -year-old, he played his first tournament. In 1989 he received a scholarship and went for three and a half years at the chess school in Altensteig, where he trained with the great masters Luděk Pachman, Miroslav Filip and Lothar Vogt. In Germany he participated twice in the Württemberg Championship and played his first international tournaments. During his time in Germany he was reported to FIDE for the German Chess Federation. In 1995 he received the title awarded by the FIDE International Master. Since 1994, in Moscow, he played for South Africa at the Chess Olympiads. Kobese participated in several knockout World Championship of FIDE, however, different from each in the first round. At the 2001 World Championships in Moscow him a 1-1 ( 1, -1, = 0) succeeded against Péter Lékó in the regular games, only in the rapid games, the Hungarian world-class players prevailed. Kobese is a multiple winner of the championship of South Africa (1998 and 2003 divided in 2007 with 1.5 points ahead ) and cuts regularly on the front ranks in the African Continental Championships: in the case of the African Cup of Nations in 1998, aligned in Cairo, he was third in 2001 ( also in Cairo ), he finished second behind the Moroccan Hicham Grandmaster Hamdouchi. By his fifth place at the 2005 Africa Cup of Nations in Lusaka, he qualified for the FIDE World Cup in Khanty- Mansiysk, where he was eliminated in the first round against Boris Gelfand.

His current Elo rating is 2355 (as of July 2011), he is so behind in third place, the South African Elo ranking.