Cesar Augusto Blanco Gramajo

César Augusto Blanco-Gramajo is an ICCF chess grandmaster. He primarily plays correspondence chess, and has twice been Latin American champion in this modality.

Blanco was born January 14, 1959, in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Blanco received a business administration degree from San Carlos University in Guatemala, and his thesis was awarded as the best in the country (1985) in the economics area. He also got an MBA – graduated as cum laude – in Finance from Francisco Marroquin University, also in Guatemala City.

Blanco started to play chess in 1972 when the Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky called the attention of the world toward chess. He also represented his country in the 31st Chess Olympiad in Moscow, 1994.

By post, Blanco started to play around 1974 (when he was only 15 years old). The passion for the game increased with the years, but professional activity limited Blanco participation in "live tournaments". On the other side, postal chess became his main source of activity to keep up to date with chess.

He won the XIII and XIV CADAP zonal championships. He received the CADAP Master title in 1985, then the IM title from ICCF in 1996, the SIM title in 1999 and the GM title in 2003.

Due to working reasons, Blanco left Guatemala and became a member of the US chess federation around 1998. He played several tournaments around the US and got his FIDE rating under the US federation.

Currently, Blanco is living back in Guatemala and is playing the XXVI ICCF world final.

Blanco-Gramajo has also been vice president and director of finance and administration Kellogg's Latin America region from 2000 until his early retirement in 2007.

Prior to joining Kelloggs, Blanco-Gramajo worked in various roles for both the Bank of America and Citibank.

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