GMYAZ

I started to play chess in July of 1972.  I was twelve years old and it was the height of the Bobby Fischer boom.  In Seattle, I was very fortunate to have a close circle of chess friends who clobbered me in Bughouse and helped me enormously.  I had also had numerous coaches for whom I'll forever be grateful.  David Chapman (first teacher roughly 1200); Jeffery Parson (roughly 1800); James Blackwood (2200); James H. McCormick; Victors Pupols; Peter Biyiasas and many others as well.  In 1975 I earned a 2200, "master" chess rating.  In 1978 I became the US Junior Champion, repeated in 1979 and then won the World Junior Chess Championship in Skien, Norway. In 1980, I tied for first with Walter Browne in Wijk Aan Zee, scoring 10.5/13.  Good enough for my third and final GM norm.  In the 1980 Maltase Olympiad my GM title was confirmed. 

At that time, I was rather pleased myself, I had become a GM at 19 years and ten months old.  Quite an achievement.  It was bettered of course by Bobby Fischer, whose youngest GM title ever would never be surpassed …  Boris Spassky and Henrique Mecking.  I was the fourth youngest GM in the world.  Now I don't mention this bit of trivia at all as I suspect I may not be in the top 500 youngest GM ever...

During Wijk 1980, Viktor Korchtnoi invited me to work with him and GM Michael Stean in his 1980/81 Candidate Matches and World Championship match against Anatoly Karpov.  I'm enormously grateful to Victor and Michael as well.  It was the greatest chess learning experience of my life.

I became a two-time Candidate for the World Championship, a four time US Champion, I was ranked in the world's top ten and played for ten US Olympiad teams and two World Teams.  I retired from tournament play in September 2003.  (Yasser)

For twelve years he was the publisher chief editor of the Inside Chess magazine.

In 2001, Seirawan released a plan to reunite the chess world, which at that time had two world champions: Ruslan Ponomariov had gained the title under the auspices of FIDE, while Vladimir Kramnik had beaten Garry Kasparov to take the Einstein title. It called for one match between Ponomariov and Kasparov (the world number one), and another between Kramnik and the winner of the 2002 Einstein tournament in Dortmund (who turned out to be Péter Lékó). The winners of these matches would then play each other to become undisputed World Champion. This plan was signed by all parties on May 6, 2002, in the so-called "Prague Agreement". The Kramnik-Leko match took place (the match was drawn, with Kramnik retaining his title); the Kasparov-Ponomariov match was canceled in 2003, and this particular plan became moot after the September–October 2006 FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 between Kramnik and Veselin Topalov reunited the world championship title .

In the July 2007 FIDE list, Seirawan had an Elo rating of 2634, placing him in the top 100 chess players in the world, and America's number four (behind Hikaru Nakamura, Gata Kamsky and Alexander Onischuk). He played six games in the July 2007 FIDE update.

In 2007, Seirawan unveiled his enhanced chess game called Seirawan chess which he is currently promoting worldwide. The first ever event was a 12 board simultaneous exhibition held March 31, 2007 in Vancouver, Canada.

In July 2011, Seirawan returned from an eight year hiatus to competitive chess, playing in the 2011 US Championship as well as the world team championship in Ningbo, China, where he won a Silver medal for his 4th board.  He had significant results, including wins vs. GM J. Polgar and GM Mamedyarov, both active and much higher rated players.