High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Yasser Seirawan (Arabic: ; born March 24, 1960) is a chess grandmaster and 4-time US-champion. He was winner of the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979. Seirawan is also a respected chess author and commentator. He was born in Damascus, Syria. His father was Arab and his mother an English nurse from Nottingham, where he spent some time in his early childhood. When he was seven, his family emigrated to Seattle (U.S.), where he attended McClure Middle School and Garfield High School, and honed his game at a (now-defunct) coffeehouse, The Last Exit on Brooklyn, playing against the likes of Latvian-born master Viktors Pupols and six-time Washington State Champion Jim McCormick. He is married to FIDE Master Yvette Nagel, daughter of former Leefbaar Nederland political party president and politician Jan Nagel.