David Smerdon

David Smerdon is an Australian chess grandmaster and economist. He is the second highest ranked chess player of Australia. Smerdon has played for the Australian team in the Chess Olympiad since 2004. He is now a lecturer at the University of Queensland, with areas of research in Applied Economics; Economic Development and Growth; Experimental, Behavioural, and Evolutionary Methods.

Recent news

GM David Smerdon explores the chess scene in Kenya

8/21/2018 – Australian Grandmaster DAVID SMERDON is semi-retired from chess after getting married, returning to his hometown of Brisbane to take up a professorship in the School of Economics at the University of Queensland. He still blogs occasionally and recently published a fascinating two-part story about a trip to Kenya, which we bring you with kind permission of the author. | Pictured: Chess players from Alliance Girls’ High School, Nairobi, who sometimes play against their brother school, and they enjoy playing — and beating — the boys. | Photos: DavidSmerdon.com

The Secret of Chess

12/22/2017 – Other chess reviewers have been at best dismissal and at worst harshly critical of The Secret of Chess, by Lyudmil Tsvetkov. However, according to GM David Smerdon, this book is a one of a kind work that legitimately has the potential to revolutionise how we think about chess. | Photo: Smerdon at the Tromsø Chess Olympiad, by Andreas Kontokanis CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons