IM Jesse Kraai has earned his 3rd and final GM norm this weekend at the Foxwoods Open. En route to his GM performance, he defeated GM Nakamura and GM Shabalov. His current FIDE rating is 2477. However, he should earn additional points this weekend toward the 2500 mark for his title confirmation.
Iryna Zenyuk also earned a WIM norm in the same event.
Congratulations to both!
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Great!
That game with Nakamura was simply brilliant, at one point it seemed to me that he was completely stuck and looking to lose and then he whips out this brilliant h-file attack and swings that game. Wonderful.
I still don’t understand some of the moves in that Nakamura game, I guess he has been around Friedel too long. Speaking of which, I wonder how Friedel feels about this final norm? I mean, they are good friends but Kraii just two norms quite quickly, whereas Friedel has been sitting on top of his two for a bit.
How old is Kraai
Kraai does some great work for chesslecture.com. If you are like most people and learn visually with voice, as opposed to reading (as most people do – vocalization and visual learning are proven to be two of the most effective learning methods), then his lectures (or any of them, for that matter) at chesslecture.com are worth the $13 a month.
I’m a member of it and I think it is excellent.
Congrats to Mr. Kraai!
Congrats to Jesse Kraai, one of my toughest opponents and certainly deserving of the GM title.
I hope you get to 2500 quickly and FIDE and the USCF are just as quick in the application and decision process.
Great job Jesse!!
Ben
Yes I agree with Mark. I have been a member of chesslecture.com for a year now and Kraai’s lectures are amongst the best.
Jesse,
We’re all proud of your acheivement. Following your material on chesslecture.com has improved all of our games at the Polmar chess club. Thanks a million!
About twelve years ago Jesse played a season or two for my club, Cowley, in Oxford, England. He had very long hair in those days!
Congratulations.
thanks for posting Susan. I have been looking to find out if he got the norm. now just get the rating up a few points. bingo.
Hay can some one tell me what a norm is had how you get one?
The rules for norms are here:
http://www.fide.com/official/handbook.asp?level=B0101
by the way, does anyone know by how much FIDE did Kraai go up from 2477. May be he already passed 2500.
I enjoy Jesse’s quiet, patient, thorough lectures on chesslecture.com immensely, and am thrilled for his achievement. I watched his game against the great Nakamura live on playchess, and for parts of the game Naka had absolutely no play. It was a brilliant performance. Wait to go, Jesse Kraai!
He was Denker HS Champ back around 1989-1990 so he is probably around 34-36 years old.
me parece bien
FIDE has his birthdate at 1972.
I was there to watch the last day of the tournament and so got to see how Kraai celebrated his norm: he went to the skittles room and played bughouse for a couple of hours!
He played with IM Josh Friedel as his partner, against Parker Zhao and another young player I did not recognize. After a slow start, they won consistently. Friedel was particularly impressive, coming up with many spectacular combinations to force his opponent to sit and watch the other board, because of forced mate.
Congratulations again, Jesse.
Viele Grüße aus Bielefeld von BigBang.