Ian Rogers (chess player)

Ian Rogers OAM (born 24 June 1960) is an Australian chess player, trainer and writer. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1985.

Ian Rogers
Rogers at Dortmund 2010
CountryAustralia
Born (1960-06-24) 24 June 1960
Hobart, Tasmania
TitleGrandmaster (1985)
FIDE rating2545 (February 2021) [inactive]
Peak rating2618 (January 1999)[1]
Peak rankingNo. 50 (May 1999)[1]

Personal life

Before turning professional, Rogers completed a BSc (Meteorology) from the University of Melbourne.

He is married to Cathy Rogers, herself an International Arbiter, Woman FIDE Master, and a lawyer.[2]

He is a distant cousin of Australian cricketer Chris Rogers.[3][4]

Career

Rogers is the first Australian-raised chess grandmaster (Walter Browne achieved the title earlier, but grew up in the US and represented Australia only from 1969–1972). Rogers attained the Grandmaster title in 1985 after becoming an International Master in 1980. He was Australia's highest-rated player for over twenty years, and represented Australia at fourteen Chess Olympiads (twelve of them on first board).[5]

Rogers won more than a hundred and twenty classical chess tournaments including fifteen round-robin grandmaster tournaments. He won the Australian Chess Championship four times – in 1980, 1986, 1998, and 2006, and holds the record for the most wins (either outright or on tie-break) at the traditional Doeberl Cup, with 12.

Among his career highlights are three consecutive victories from 1988 to 1990 in the grandmaster tournament in Groningen (outright by a clear point in 1988 and 1989, a point ahead of Viswanathan Anand, and jointly in 1990).

In 2005, he was awarded the title of FIDE Senior Trainer. Rogers retired from competitive chess on medical advice in 2007.

Throughout his competitive career and more so since his retirement from competitive chess in July 2007,[6] Rogers has reported on many tournaments for various media outlets, with photographic assistance from Cathy Rogers. He was a panelist for BBC television during their 1993 World Championship coverage and covered numerous major championships for news agency Reuters. Rogers has also worked as a public commentator at high-level matches and tournaments around the world, including at World Championship and Candidates matches in London, and commentating on tournaments in Wijk aan Zee, Moscow and Saint Louis.

Rogers was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 1996 Australia Day Honours for his service to chess.[7]

Chess strength

Rogers' peak international ranking was 50th in the world in May–June 1999, and he was the highest-ranked Australian player from 1984 until his retirement in 2007. His best single performance was at the Belgrade Open in 1984.

Books
  • Ian Rogers (1981). Australian Chess – Into the Eighties. Sun Books. ISBN 0-72510-384-1.
  • Ian Rogers; Cathy Rogers (Photographer) (1996). Australia at the Yerevan Chess Olympiad. Australian Chess Enterprises.

Notable games

References
  1. Ian Rogers FIDE rating history, 1978–2001 at OlimpBase.org
  2. Relatives of Chessplayers
  3. For this couple, chess is a game for life Archived 21 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine Hindustan Times. 17 November 2013
  4. Australian Chess Open Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 1 January 2015
  5. Men's Chess Olympiads – Ian Rogers OlimpBase
  6. Shaun Press. "GM Ian Rogers retires a winner" chessexpress blog. 8 July 2007
  7. "Ian Rogers". honours.pmc.gov.au. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
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