Leonid Sokolin

Born in Leningrad, USSR, Sokolin was taught to play chess at age 4 by his grandfather. He became a FIDE Master at the age of 22. In 1993, Sokolin moved to the United States and received a Masters Degree in Computer Science at Brooklyn Polytechnical University in 1996. He received his IM title in 1998. Sokolin spent his whole career at Wall Street, where he worked as a programmer at Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and other big firms. He started playing chess again just in 2018, and participated in the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Saint Petersburg.