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Semyon Lomasov

Some YU students spent this past summer giving children an amazing camp experience or participating in impressive internships. Semyon Lomasov ‘24YC, a 21-year-old chess grandmaster, spent his summer winning yet another chess tournament, the 2023 Summer Chess Classic. A privately organized tournament organized by the Saint Louis Chess Club, all players had to receive a personal invitation to participate. Lomasov won the B section, one of the two sections in the tournament, each consisting of 10 players. Of the 10 players in the B section, nine were grandmasters, and one was an international master. He won the tournament with five draws and four wins, scoring 6.5 points in 9 rounds. The win was another in an impressive string of chess successes for the Russian-born Lomasov, who, at the age of 4, began learning chess from his father. At age 6, he began to train seriously at a chess school in Moscow, practicing three times a week for two hours a session, with a one-hour game on Sundays. As a result, his accomplishments in the chess world are legendary: winner, at age 7, of the Moscow championship for under-10-year-olds in 2009; European champion in rapid chess for under-10-year-olds in 2012; and world champion of under-14-year-olds in 2016. He also won the Moscow Open in 2018, equating his performance in that tournament to No. 7 in the current world rankings. In 2019, Lomasov started college at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia. Later that same year, Israel offered him the opportunity to represent the Jewish state in international chess competitions. Intrigued and flattered by the offer, Lomasov and his family moved there in early 2020, and he began playing for the Israel Chess Federation. Soon after, in September 2021, he achieved the title of grandmaster. Lomasov transferred to YU in the fall of 2022 because of its strong academic reputation, and he appreciates the talented faculty as well as the broad array of subjects he can study. While he isn’t sure what field he wishes to pursue, the math major particularly enjoys research and hopes to enter a strong Ph.D. program in the future.