Four times US Champion Alexander Shabalov realized chess would be his profession after winning the Latvian junior championship at the age of 11. Alexander is from Riga, the birthplace of the Latvian wizard and highly celebrated ex-World Champion Mikhail Tal. ‘Shaba’ and the famous Alexei Shirov, who also writes for Thinkers Publishing, had the luxury to work with Tal personally and both inherited his thrilling style. If you are watching the first board of an open tournament and the pieces are flying in all kind of directions, it’s a good bet that Shabalov is one of the players! Alexander is now a US citizen, residing in Pittsburgh.