NORTH AMERICA/PACIFIC ZONE (NAPZ)

GM Ian S. Brooks

GM Certificate

USA Co-Champion in 2003, 1st Email United States CC Championship
IM title in 1998 ... SIM title in 2000
GM title in 2002 ... IA title in 2000

Following are some quotes from an Interview published at The Campbell Report. For the entire interview see: Interview of GM Ian Brooks
GM Brooks was the subject for the Game of the Month column for May 2003 written by GM Vytas Palciauskas at the ICCF web site.

I learned the moves from my brother when I was about 11, but didn't start playing on a regular basis until about three years later. I played my first rated OTB game when I was 16. I started dabbling in CC a couple of years after that in the Postal Chess Club in England. I have been married to Holly for 15 years and have 8 year old twins, Matthew and Heather.

I am a computational biophysicist and work at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications applying computational techniques to a variety of biomedical problems.

I think one of the keys to my success is that I keep my game load small. I generally have no more than 1 ½ tournaments in progress at any one time and for the foreseeable future this means the Olympiad and completing my games in the ICCF 50th Jubilee GM-B and US Championship. I have given Title Tournaments Commissioner Josef Mrkvicka notice that sometime in the next couple of years I would like to take a place in the candidates' tournament, and that he will need to find another TD when I do, but that will probably not be until at least 2004. My priority for now is the Olympiad XIV final and, with luck, I will be able to play in Olympiad XV final after this one. I am now in the fortunate position of getting frequent invitations to play in tournaments but am not able to accept them because of my time commitment to other events.