About the Masters

Past Results

Other Things

IM Vivek Rao shot to stardom at a young age, achieving his IM title and a peak rating of 2578 fresh out of high school. In college, he was a major force on teams which took 4 Pan-Am Intercollegiate titles, 3 for Harvard and one for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champlaign, even defeating GM Gata Kamsky in the process. After this he went to grad school and then moved to NYC and got a job on Wall St. The Tuesday Night Master events have gotten Vivek back into the chess fray, as he has started playing regularly again. There was a saying when Vivek was younger that went “What you say about Vivek Rao is what you say about theory now”. It’s great to know that chessplayers are also such talented poets, but the point is that Vivek is a heavy theoretician. He would tell me how he studied 8 hours a day when he was younger and thus had time to soak in all the latest theoretical developments. Viveks current Achilles Heel is his addiction to SEVERE time trouble. He sometimes gets down to one minute left on his clock in a normal looking middle game. This can probably be credited to rust, as he has not played serious chess in a long while. Once he overcomes this we can expect to see bigger and better results. Vivek is ranked number 61 in the country as of December 2004.