Maurice Ashley

Maurice Ashley, (born March 6, 1966, St. Andrews, Jamaica), Jamaican American chess player who was the first African American to earn an International Grandmaster chess title.

(Read Garry Kasparov’s Britannica essay on chess & Deep Blue.)

Ashley moved to Brooklyn, New York, with his family when he was 12 years old. He soon took up chess and excelled at the game, becoming a national master in 1986 and an International Master in 1993. From 1991 to 1997 Ashley was the chess director of the Harlem Educational Activities Fund, Inc., where he led teams to three scholastic national championships—three of his players also won the individual national championships for their age groups. In 1997 Ashley refocused his efforts on improving his own chess and spent the next two years studying and playing full-time in international tournaments in order to fulfill the necessary grandmaster “norms.” After earning his International Grandmaster title in 1999, Ashley returned to coaching and community action by becoming the first director of the Harlem Chess Center (closed in 2002 due to lack of funds).

Ashley was a frequent television and Internet chess commentator, reporting on the Garry Kasparov v. Nigel Short world championship match (1993), Kasparov v. IBM Deep Blue matches (1996 and 1997), and Kasparov v. X3D Fritz (2003), among other chess events. He also held posts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. Ashley was the author of instructional CD-ROMs, including Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess (1996) and Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess for Beginning and Intermediate Players (1997). He also wrote Chess for Success (2005), an autobiographical book that explores the game’s positive influence on young people.