The Field
Jeffery Xiong
This young super star has achieved many impressive results since his start at seven years old. In 2010, he won the Under 10 North American Continental Championship, and then a silver medal in the Under 10 World Championship. Xiong was the 2016 US Junior Champion, and then continued on to become the 2016 World Junior Champion.
Xiong’s most impressive trait is his ability to handle losses. No matter how painful the loss was he always sees his losses as an opportunity to improve. This mentality has separated him from other grandmasters by keeping calm and collected after games, often analyzing them to find where he could improve. This mentality has pushed him over 2700 after a string of impressive results in 2019. In September of 2019, Xiong competed in the World Cup where he defeated grandmasters such as Anish Giri and Jan-Kryzystof Duda, pushing him to the quarterfinals.
Sam Sevian
This American chess prodigy holds some of the top records in the United States. As a child, he received training from the legendary Garry Kasparov and Grandmaster Alexander Chernin. In 2012, he became the World U12 Champion. Sevian is credited as the youngest American Expert level player and American Grandmaster, getting his GM title at 13 years, 10 months, and 27 days old. This achievement also puts him in the top ten youngest Grandmasters in the world.
During his appearance at the 2015 US Championship, Sevian defeated Wesley So, one of the top ten Grandmasters in the world. In 2017, he won the American Continental Chess Championship, being the youngest in history to do so. Recently, Sevian played in the Junior Speed Chess Championship, making it to the quarter finals.
John Burke
John Burke is an American chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, Burke achieved the FIDE Master title in August 2015, and the International Master title in April 2016. He was awarded his Grandmaster title in April 2018. Burke reached an Elo rating of 2601 in September 2015, making him the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2600 or above.
Nicolas Checa
Checa's first big chess achievement was in 2012 when he became U12 National Champion in the USCF/Chess.com invitational championship. He has since been a member of the All-American Chess Team. At age 11, he became the youngest New York State Champion in history—a record that he still holds which led to his profiles in both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. In 2014 he placed second in the U14 section of the North American Youth Chess Championship and obtained 1st place in the NAYCC Blitz Open. 2015 brought continued success as he tied for 5th place in the World Youth Chess Championship in Greece, where he was the official U.S. player in the U14 section. In that same year, he became an FM. The following year, he became an IM. In 2017, Checa has continued his chess succes when he became National High School (K-12) Blitz Champion at the VI SuperNationals that took place in Nashville in May. In 2017, he became the New York High School Championship in Saratoga, New York and participated in the SCCSC GM Norm Invitational.
Brandon Jacobson
Brandon Jacobson is a chess Grandmaster from New Jersey. Influenced by his older brother Aaron, Brandon began playing chess at age 4 and has developed an enduring passion for the game. He was accepted to Columbia University at age 14, and became a grandmaster at 16
Praveen Balakrishnan
IM Praveen Balakrishnan is the 2017 Denker Champion and is also the current Virginia State Champion. Praveen also won the Cadet Championship in 2016. He also led his high school team, Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology of Virginia, to Championship titles in both the blitz and main categories at the National High School Championships held in Columbus, Ohio this year. He won the individual blitz title in that event as well. He participated in the 2018 U.S. Junior Championship.
Joshua Sheng
Joshua lives in Santa Monica, and is currently the #1 ranked junior in all of Southern California. He tied for first in the North American under-20 Championship in 2016, defeating (now GMs) Ruifeng Li and Akshat Chandra in the process. His best result to date was winning a GM norm round robin in Berkeley with a score of 7/9. He tied for first at the 2017 LA Open, and competed in the 2019 U.S. Junior Championship.
Christopher Yoo
Christopher is a Korean-American Internatonal Master from California. He is the youngest player in the world to beat a FIDE rated 2700+ super GM and the youngest California State Champion. Christopher is also an award-winning composer of endgame studies. He earned 3rd prize in the 2019 FIDE World Cup in Composing, where he competed against the best composers in the world. He also won a gold medal in the 2019 Youth Chess Composing Challenge, besting the strongest study composers in the world under the age of 23.
Bryce Tiglon
Tiglon is an active member of the Washington chess scene, and has had a incredible scholastic chess career thus far. Tiglon qualified for the U.S. Junior Championship by winning the 2019 Denker Tournament of High School Champions.
Christopher Shen
Christopher Shen is an American chess FIDE Master. He clinched an IM norm by winning the 2019 Charlotte IM Fall Invitational, with a performance rating of 2505. He finished second place in the U-18 section at the 2019 Pan American Youth Championship in Guayaquil, Ecuador. He qualified for the U.S. Junior Championship by winning the 2019 U.S. Junior Open in Chicago, IL. Christopher is also a student-athlete of fencing sport and he is a current member of the All-American Fencing Team of High School.