Amon Simutowe is the first international chess grandmaster from the 48 nation region of sub-Saharan Africa and the third black Grandmaster in history after Maurice Ashley of the U.S. and Pontus Carlson of Sweden. Amon was never formally trained in chess. He attained the Grandmaster title in 2007 and was confirmed in 2009 by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Amon’s academic training is in economics, finance and international relations.
Amon started playing chess when he was 10 years old which is generally considered late in chess. He was also a talented soccer player. As his game of chess shaped up, he left soccer for chess, later saying “I didn’t have anyone to blame for my losses and I didn’t have to wait until I was 18 years old to compete nationally.”
International Master to Grandmaster Title
In 1998, Amon earned the International Master (IM) and became the youngest winner of the South African Open at age 16. In the same year, he competed in the Under 16 World Championship in Spain, just missing 2nd place after losing the last round to Diego Flores of Argentina. At the same tournament, he defeated Dmitri Bunzmann, a German prodigy, who was considered a future world champion. He later went on to win the first of his two African Junior Championships in 1999 by 12/13 followed by an 11/11 score in 2000 during which he earned the nick name "The Zambezi Shark" as he became famous for repeatedly defeating his competitors in Fischer-like fashion, by winning tournaments with large margins.
He tied for second place at the 2000 World Junior Chess Championships in Armenia and scored 6½/11 in the British Championship, including a beautiful win against Grandmaster (GM) Peter Wells and IM Colin Crouch. At the 2000 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey, he scored 8/10 on board one, earning a silver medal.
He became a FIDE Knockout World Chess Championship Candidate in 2000, 2001 and 2004.
Amon embarked on a path to earn his final Grandmaster norm in 2007. After playing a number of tournaments in the U.S. with great results including a brilliant win against US number 1 ranked player, Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura at the 2007 U.S. Open, Amon travelled to the Netherlands to compete in the 2007 Euwe Stimulus tournament, where he earned his third GM norm.
In 2009, Amon earned two additional grandmaster norms in Croatia and Italy after he had already earned the required three. He was confirmed International Grandmaster in the same year.