Akira Watanabe (chess player)

Akira Watanabe
Akira Watanabe
	Watanabe in 2008
Country	Japan
Born	March 1, 1972 (age 52); Tokyo, Japan
Title	FIDE Master (1997)
FIDE rating	2284 (September 2014)
Peak rating	2388 (January 2000)

Akira Watanabe (渡辺暁, Watanabe Akira, born March 1, 1972) is a Japanese political scientist, chess player with the title of FIDE Master. In 2020, he was an associate professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He was born in Tokyo and his research focuses on Mexican politics and Latin American culture and politics.^{[citation needed]}

Profile

He learned chess in elementary school becoming serious at when he was a high school student, at Azabu High School. After graduating from Tokyo University, he studied in Mexico. In 1997 he obtained the ranking of FIDE Master. ^[1] He has won the Japanese Chess Championship three times, being national champion in 1998, 1999 and 2000 ^[2] He has represented Japan in the Chess Olympiad on several occasions.^{[citation needed]}

Watanabe is sometimes confused with Akira Watanabe the shogi player who has the same surname and the same reading of the name in English characters. Watanabe's favorite openings are the Sicilian Defense and King's Indian Defense.^{[citation needed]}

In the field of Latin American research, he became an associate professor at Yamanashi University from April 2012, as well as, University of Tokyo. He is a part-time lecturer in Spanish at Keio University and Surugadai University. He transferred to Tokyo Institute of Technology from 2020 and continues to work as a part-time lecturer at other universities.^{[citation needed]}