Alex Sherzer is an American chess Grandmaster who was born on January 26, 1971, in Saint Louis, Missouri. He won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship in 1989 and 1990, and earned the title of International Grandmaster in 1993.
Sherzer completed pre-medical undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University and is a graduate of The University of Maryland School of Medicine. He also had postgraduate training at the same institution. In 2003, he completed a residency in anesthesiology.
Sherzer is known for his aggressive style of playing chess, which included an opening repertoire that heavily favored less common openings with a double-edged and often imbalanced character. His games collection is publicly accessible online. He adopted the Budapest Gambit and guided it to a considerable tournament success.
Most notable amongst his accomplishment was winning against nine-time U.S. champion, Bobby Fischer. He also has won many games against several elite-level Grandmasters.
He fought 2565 Elo-rated player, Sergey Kudrin, to a draw in the first two games of their title match series before losing the final two games, thereby bowing out of the competition in the playoffs of the PCA qualifier series.
Sherzer has a dual career as an anesthesiologist and a professional chess player. He now works as a medical doctor in the Seychelles, an archipelago country in the Indian Ocean.