Fabiano Caruana
The No. 2 ranked player in the world, Caruana became a grandmaster at the age of 14 years, 11 months, 20 days. He was the youngest grandmaster in the history of the United States until his record was beaten in 2009 by Ray Robson. After winning the 2014 Sinquefield Cup with a score of 8.5/10 and a performance of over 3000, he achieved a FIDE rating of 2844, becoming the third highest-rated player in history. Caruana has represented the United States in two Olympiads, winning team gold in 2016 and team silver in 2018. He had a phenomenal showing in 2018 winning the Grenke Chess Classic, Norway Chess, and tying for first in the Sinquefield Cup with Carlsen and Aronian. Caruana won the 2018 Candidates tournament thus becoming the first American to challenge the World Champion in a unified match in 46 years. After drawing all of the classical games, Caruana lost the match in rapid tiebreaks. In 2019 he tied for second place with GM Leinier Dominguez for the US Chess Championship and later that year he beat legendary World Champion Garry Kasparov during the 2019 Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX exhibition. This year he placed second in Clutch Chess USA & Clutch Chess International, two new online tournaments hosted by the Saint Louis Chess Club.