Kenny Solomon
Kenny Solomon, 2019
Full nameKenneth Terence Solomon
Country South Africa
Born (1979-10-08) 8 October 1979
Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, South Africa[1]
TitleGrandmaster (2015)
Peak rating2461 (January 2012)

Kenneth Terence Solomon[2] (born 8 October 1979) is a South African chess Grandmaster. He is the first and currently the only Grandmaster South Africa has ever produced.[3]

He took up chess at the age of 13, inspired by his elder brother's qualification for the Chess Olympiad in Manila in 1992. Borrowing a chess book from him to study, Solomon was soon taken under his brother's wing to study and within two years, he was the South African Under-16 champion.[4][1]

He has won the South African Championship in 2003 and the South African Open three times, in 1999, 2005 and 2007, and was also the top ranked South African in 2003. He became an International Master in 2004. During the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul Solomon earned his final GM norm.[5]

Although Solomon has never reached the rating of 2500 that is usually required for the Grandmaster title, a special FIDE rule allows winners of continental championships to earn the title regardless of rating, and he did so by winning the African Chess Championship in December 2014.[3] This made him the first chess grandmaster from South Africa,[6] the second grandmaster from sub-Saharian Africa after Amon Simutowe of Zambia,[7] and the fourth black chess grandmaster in history.

He qualified for the 2017 Chess World Cup where he was defeated by Fabiano Caruana in the first round.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "SA man reaches exalted Grandmaster status", Daily Maverick, South Africa, 2012, retrieved 17 September 2012
  2. ↑ "DA honours Kenny Solomon as South Africa's first International Chess Grandmaster". DA MPL Network. 23 February 2015. Archived from the original on 3 August 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
  3. 1 2 "South Africa's first Grandmaster". Chess News. 4 January 2015. Retrieved 9 November 2022.
  4. ↑ South Africa: Man Reaches Exalted Grandmaster Status, AllAfrica.com, 2012, retrieved 20 September 2012
  5. ↑ "How chess Grandmaster beat the odds". Independent Online. 25 February 2015. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  6. ↑ Priyadarshan Banjan (4 January 2015). "South Africa's first Grandmaster". ChessBase. Retrieved 8 September 2015.
  7. ↑ Smith, David (8 January 2015). "South African escapes township violence to become chess grandmaster". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 April 2016.


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