Background
Ramírez started playing chess at the age of four after watching the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and was taught the game by his father, Jorge Ramírez.
Ramírez started playing chess at the age of four after watching the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and was taught the game by his father, Jorge Ramírez.
He graduated from the University of Texas in Dallas with a master"s degree in Arts and Technology, Video Game Design.
He was awarded the title of International Master at the age of 13 by scoring 6½ points in the Sub-zonal Tournament held in Managua, Nicaragua in November 2001. In 2002, he played for the Costa Rican team on board three at the 35th Chess Olympiad, held in Bled Slovenia, scoring 9/14 points. He drew games among others with Russian Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich.
Ramírez gained his first grandmaster norm at the 2003 Capablanca Memorial in Havana, Cuba, scoring 8/11.
The second norm was obtained in August 2003 at the Zonal Tournament 2.3 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, where he tied for first place with Lenier Dominguez. He took part in the 2004 Chess Olympiad in Calvià playing for Costa Rica on top board.
In 2008, Ramírez took first place in the Morelia Open and played on board one for the Costa Rican team at the 38th Chess Olympiad. In 2011 he transferred to the United States Chess Federation.
In May 2013, Ramirez tied for first with Gata Kamsky in the United States. Chess Championship, after they both scored 6.5/9.
Ramìrez was declared runner-up after the playoff, where he drew the two rapid games and lost the Armageddon game, in which he had 19 minutes and 45 seconds against Kamsky"s 45 minutes. This result enabled him to qualify for the Chess World Cup 2013, where he was knocked out by Evgeny Tomashevsky in the first round, after the Armageddon tiebreaker. Ramirez finished equal first at the 2013 World Open with a score of 6.5/9.
He finished equal second (third on countback) in the 2014 Carlos Torre Repetto Memorial.