Awonder Liang

Title: 
International Master
Rating: 
2483
Federation: 
Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Age: 
14
Status: 
Accepted
Bio: 

 

 

Awonder Liang is an American chess prodigy. He is an International Master, obtaining the title in 2015 when we was just 12 years old.

In 2011, he became the youngest chess expert in United States Chess Federation (USCF) history with a rating of 2000 at the age of 8 years and 7 days, a record previously held by Samuel Sevian. That same year he became the youngest to defeat an International Master (IM) in a standard tournament game, defeating IM Daniel Fernandez in the sixth round at the U.S. Open in Orlando, Florida. He would also go on to win the gold medal in the under-8 open section of the World Youth Chess Championship, earning a FIDE Master title. On July 29, 2012 in a standard time limit tournament game Liang became the youngest player ever to defeat a Grandmaster, GM Larry Kaufman; a record previously held by Fabiano Caruana.

IM Awonder Liang placed second in the 2016 U.S. Junior Closed Chess Championship at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of St. Louis, Missouri. There, he achieved the second place score of 6/9, just a half point behind Jeffery Xiong.