Serge BONDAR

Executive Director and Card Game Consultant

Serge was born in Minsk, Belarus. It was a part of the former Soviet Union, at that time. He grew up in a family of professional chess players where the words "sport competition", even when not pronounced, were always in the air.

In the early days, Serge had tried to become tennis Pro but had to retire due to injuries. Then he was one of the founders of Belarus Federation of the "Five-in-a-row", a logic game that was, at the time, very popular in Japan. He won title of  "Champion of Belarus" in  1985.

Serge is an active bridge and chess teacher, as well as a certified Tournament Director for both sports. He is the developer of SoloBRIDGE™, which provides the methodology for and a spring-board game into championship-level bridge, a heretofore missing tool for bridge youth education.

Serge is an aggressive promoter of use of modern technologies in intellectual games tournament organization and education.

Serge earned a Master Degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Minsk, Belarus; completed a computer science program at DePaul University, Chicago; and worked as a software developer with the Fortune 500 companies IBM, AT&T, Ameritech, EDS, and others. His latest assignment was an IT consultant for Veterans Affairs, the second largest department of the United States Government, in the area of networking and Internet security.

Michael KATZ

Director and Checkers and Chess Consultant

"Michael Katz" is, arguably, most recognizable name is history of Russian (8x8-board) and International (10x10-board) Checkers.

In contemporary mind sport games competition, it is impossible to claim credit for 20 (!!!) World Champion Titles, unless you are a coach of the Champions. That is a new World Guinness record, if they would have a coaching world champions category. The list of his students and their achievements is a long one.

Here are just a few:

Zoya SODOVSKAYA - 11 times World Checkers Champion

Elena ALTSHUL - 5 times World Checker Champion

Alex PRESMAN, Eugene LATUTIN, and Ludmila SONENKO are World Checker Champions.

The most intriguing - the last page of Michael's coaching career is still to come. After his arrival to US, in 1994, Michael had switched gears. He now plays and teaches chess. His school "White Rook" is the most popular chess and checker educational facility among Russian speaking players of New York.

So, the students chess list is growing: Paul LENDERMAN had won a Title of Cadet (under 16 years old) World Champion in July, 2005. Alan WISE 3 time US Chess champion and Alex PELEKHATY is a US Chess Champion in their respective age groups.

Arkadiy KLEBAN

Secretary and Media Consultant

Arkadiy is a president of Illinois Association "Zemliaky" ("Compatriots") - Not-for-Profit organization of immigrants from the former U.S.S.R., which main goal is to help immigrants to adapt to the American life style, as soon as possible. Zemliaky was founded in 1995. There is a ten year, of Arkadiy's work as an Editor-in-Chief of their main publication newspaper, which is berried the same name and issued twice a month.

Arkadiy has a formal education in two fields, as he was successfully graduated from Agricultural Academy and Polytechnic Institute, back in Kiev, Ukraine. After 20 years of production experience, he had received a Ph.D. for his scientific research. Arcadiy is an author of 6 science and 2 fictional books.

For many years, the chess and checkers competition was his hobby. Arkadiy keeps his arm on a pulse of American Russian speaking community. He is a member of the world Congress of Russian speaking Jews and Chairman of the one of its committee.

Leonid BONDAR

Chess Consultant

Leonid is an International Chess Tournament Director.

Prior his relocation to USA he was a head of the Chess Department of the Belarus Academy of Physical Education and Sport for more than 15 years.

Leonid runs chess column in Reklama and other newspapers issued in Russian. In collaboration with Illinois Chess Bulletin he published his Memorable Meetings with Garry Kasparov, The Phenomenon of Paul Murphy, and Fisher as Enigma of XXth Century.

Among his students:

Susan POLGAR - World Chess Champion, and 4 times Chess Olympic Champion.

Boris GELFAND, Yuri SULMAN - see list of their achievements below.

Leonid Bondar is the author of the chess monographies "Strategy, Tactics and Style", "Chess Semesters" and "Memorials by Sokolsky".

Tamara GOLOVEY

Chess Consultant

Tamara has more than 35 years of chess coaching experience under her belt.

She is Triple Chess Champion of Belarus, Multiple Finalist (8 times) of the USSR Championships, Honored Coach of Belarus. She is an International Arbiter. She was a Chief Tournament director of many international tournaments.

Tamara have shared the third place with Albert Chow (IM) in Open Chess Tournament Illinois-2000 and the fourth in Illinois-2001among men.

She is a personal coach of many prominent chess players, among them:

Boris GELFAND, International Grandmaster, Double Olympic Champion, ranked the third in a World in 1991.

Yuri SHULMAN, International Grandmaster, Champion of the Texas State, European Champion under 20, currently is the highest ranking chess player in Illinois.

Yulia LEVITAN, International Master, a member of the Olympic team of the USA in 1992.

Valery ATLAS, Bronze Olympic Medallist in 1994.

Yuliy KLEBAN

Director and Trivia Game Consultant

Yuliy Kleban is founder and president of Chicago Intellectual Games Club "Chto? Gde? Kogda?" (Russian for "What? Where? When?").

"LAERT" club was established in June 1995. Since than more than 300 players of different ages and educational backgrounds actively participated in bi-weekly game gatherings. He is very famous all around "Chto? Gde? Kogda?" world. He promotes and helps establish "Logical-question games" clubs in various North American cities.

He hosts his own one-hour weekly game show on local Chicago radio-station since 1997.

He has Master degree in Electrical Engineering and works as head of Electrical Department in consulting design company.

Jakob GARAL

Backgammon Consultant

Jakob GARAL was born in 1952 in Chuguev, near Kharkov, Ukraine. He had graduated from Kharkov Polytechnic Institute in 1975 with top honors and degree in mechanical engineering.

For the next 25 years Jakob had worked in field of mechanical and electrical engineering, became known in the industry for his scientific research, making his Dr-Eng, in a process. He has 3 patented inventions under his belt. His hobbies include bridge, swim, tennis and downhill ski. He is a winner of many regional bridge tournaments in Germany, where he is living since 1991.

After his discovery of the European tournament Backgammon, in 1998, Jakob was getting more and more involved in to backgammon tournament live. He won(or placed in 3 top) in many prestige Backgammon tournaments.For most current list follow the link: http://www.fairbg.com/go/112/DesktopDefault.aspx

Today, Jakob is a professional Backgammon player. His is using all his talents and life experiences to improve on tournament rules for Backgammon competition.

Jakob GARAL is inventor of a special registration board for Backgammon “BEZMA®” and accompanying “Tournament BEZMA®” software, which allow to registrate all game parameters during the play in tournaments, represent such games in the Internet and save them in digital form for later analysis. In addition, this full-scale game complex (board and software) gives a unique possibility to promote new forms and formats of tournaments proposed in this book, including team competitions.

Jakob is also an author of "Fair Backgammon" - must read book for any serious mind sport games organizer. For more information see http://www.fairbg.com/

Alex AVERBUCH

GO Consultant

Alex was born in Moscow, Russia. As many other kids in Russia he played chess since childhood. However, when he was 15, he found out about the ancient Japanese game of Go and decided that it was much more interesting than any other game.

Alex graduated from the college with Master Degree in Information Technology and continued to play Go.

Alex participated in many tournaments and was a member of Top Go League of Moscow. His highest achievement was the 5th place in Moscow championship.

Alex also did a lot teaching Go. He taught both school children and adults. His best students went on to became Champions of kids and adult divisions of both USSR and Moscow’s Go Championships.