The Field
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2540
Federation:
- Plano, TX, U.S.
Age:
- 15
Bio:
- Ruifeng began playing chess when he was 5 years old. He won the Arkansas State Championship in 2011 at the age of 8, and later that same year placed second in the World Youth Chess Championships U-10 section. In 2012, after this early success, he was invited to participate in the Young Stars program, a chess training program coached by Garry Kasparov. Soon after, Ruifeng went on to earn the NM title. He received his IM title in 2015, and recently gained his Grandmaster title earlier this year. 2016 was one of the best years in his chess career. In it, he won the 2016 North American Junior Championship, National Open, and Philadelphia Open, also tied for first at 26th Annual North American Open. In early 2017, Ruifeng participated in both the Winter and Spring Classics respectively. This will be his third time taking part in a Saint Louis Quarterly tournament.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2430
Federation:
- Yerevan, Armenia
Age:
- 32
Bio:
- Tigran started playing chess at 5 and became a Grandmaster in 2004. His highest ELO rating was 2671 in March 2015. Tigran’s biggest achievements include being a member of the Armenian Gold medal team, two time Olympic Champion in 2008 and 2012; Olympic champion under 16; receiving a silver medal in World Junior under 20, 2004; 2 time Armenian champion; 5 times Armenian blitz champion; winner of international tournaments in different years, Beirut , Naidorf Memorial, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Agzamov memorial, Esfahan, Lion, Kalkatta, Golden Sands, Albena, Benasque, Chicago, Las Vegas, Philadepphia World Open.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2649
Federation:
- Trier, Germany
Age:
- 30
Bio:
- Georg is a Grandmaster from Germany and his biggest successes include winning the European Team Championships with Germany in 2011 and finishing 2nd at the Dortmund Super-GM roundrobin in 2014. At the tournament in Dortmund, Georg also got his biggest win in an individual game, beating Vladimir Kramnik with the black pieces. Nowadays, Georg is mostly known for his success in online chess, thus in fast time controls. Georg received a Bachelor’s degree from Webster University and is about to finish a Master’s degree in economics at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2640
Federation:
- Belarus
Age:
- 23
Bio:
- Vladislav was the Belarusian Junior Chess Championship winner in the U20 age group on three different occasions. He has also represented Belarus in the European Youth Chess Championship, in which he was silver in 2008 and bronze in 2010, and the World Youth Chess Championship. Vladislav has participated in the finals of the Belarusian Chess Championship, receiving silver in 2013 and bronze in 2012. He has also represented Belarus at the Chess Olympiads in 2012, 2014, and 2016, as well.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2646
Federation:
- Russia
Age:
- 25
Bio:
- Aleksandr Shimanov became an International Master in 2007. Two years later, he received his grandmaster title when he was just 17 years old. In 2013, he tied for 1st-3rd at the Nakhchivan Open with Gadir Guseinov and Igor Kurnosov. GM Shimanov typically favors the Queen’s Pawn Game and Salv openings for white, and Caro-Kann and King’s Indian openings for black.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2638
Federation:
- Saint Louis, MO, U.S.
Age:
- 23
Bio:
- Dariusz Świercz began learning the game of chess at the age of three. By the time he was 11 years old, he had already become a FIDE Master. He rapidly succeeded in obtaining his International Master title in 2008 by the age of 13, and then went on to became one of the youngest grandmasters in history and the youngest Polish grandmaster of all time when he was only 14 years old in 2009. Świercz won the 2011 World Junior Chess Championship at the age of 17 and is currently the only Polish male chess player to accomplish this title. The following year he also won the Under-18 World Championship. He favors the Sicilian opening for both white and black pieces, as well as the Ruy Lopez for white.
Tag:
Title:
- International Master
Rating:
- 2540
Federation:
- Madison, WI, U.S.
Age:
- 14
Bio:
- Awonder Liang is one of the most impressive chess prodigies in recent history. He holds a number of records including youngest ever to defeat an International Master, youngest to defeat a Grandmaster, youngest American to achieve a master rating, and youngest American to achieve the International Master rating. Other achievements include winning the U8 Open world title (2011), U10 Open world title (2013), tying for first at the 2011 U-8 World Youth Chess Championship, achieving a GM Norm at the 2016 Continental Championships, and placing second in the 2016 U.S. Junior Closed Championship. Awonder dominated in Group B of the Spring Classic tournament, held in Saint Louis in May 2017, with a score of 7.5/9, where he earned another GM Norm at that event. Shortly after, Awonder won the U.S. Junior Chess Championships in July at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2644
Federation:
- San Francisco, CA, U.S.
Age:
- 21
Bio:
- Daniel Naroditsky is a 21-year-old Grandmaster born and living in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. He is currently a rising junior at Stanford University. His first major achievement was the Gold Medal at the World Youth under-12 Chess Championship in 2007. He attained the IM title in 2011 and the GM title in 2013. Among his tournament highlights are 4th-5th place at the 2014 U.S. Championship, and 2nd place at the Porticcio Open in Corsica in 2016.
Tag:
Title:
- Woman Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2578
Federation:
- China
Age:
- 26
Bio:
- Ju Wenjun has many chess highlights including winning 2017 Gibraltar Open Best Female. She also received the 2016 Baku Olympiad Women Gold. Ju Wenjun accomplishments also include being the winner of 15-16 FIDE Women Grand Prix, 2009 and 2011 World Women Team champion, and 2010 and 2014 Chinese Individual Women Champion.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2627
Federation:
- Saint Louis, MO, U.S.
Age:
- 23
Bio:
- The Ukrainian born American Grandmaster earned his title at the age of 15. “My biggest success so far was the advancement to the 4th round (1/8 of the final) at the World Cup 2011 in Russia. I won or shared 1st place in numerous US and European tournaments, the most memorable being Cappelle la Grande in France, 2010 (650+ players, over 80 GMs) and US Masters 2015 in Greensboro,NC.” The young GM has been mostly focused on pursuing academic degrees in the past 4 years, but now has the time to devote to “rediscovering a passion for working on and playing chess again.” In May of 2015 Zherebukh switched his affiliation from the Ukrainian Chess Federation to the U.S. Federation, which made him eligible to be the unpredictable wildcard in the 2017 U.S. Championship.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2564
Federation:
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
Age:
- 19
Bio:
- At the age of 12, Alan became an Argentinean U18 Champion. At the age of 16, he received first place at the U16 World Championship in Durban, South Africa and at 17 he achieved the Grandmaster title.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2480
Federation:
- Saint Louis, MO, U.S.
Age:
- 18
Bio:
- Akshat started playing chess at the age of approximately 9 1/2 years old. He has recorded one of the fastest rises in the history of world chess when his chess rating climbed steeply from 1548 to a GM rating of 2500 in under 5 ½ years. Notable achievements for Akshat include winning the 2015 U.S. Junior Chess Championship in his first appearance and taking first in both the 2015 National High School Chess Championship as well as the National High School Blitz Championship. Since 2014, at age 14, Akshat has been the #1 ranked Junior Rapid Chess player in the country.
Tag:
Title:
- Woman Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2333
Federation:
- Glendale, CA, U.S.
Age:
- 29
Bio:
- Tatev Abrahamyan started playing chess at 8 after her father took her to the Chess Olympiad games in 1996. There she met Grandmaster Judit Polgar, arguably the greatest woman player of all time and the only woman in the tournament. Tatev is a formidable competitor. At the 2010 U.S. Women’s Championship, she played her heart out to a fantastic 7/9 score, which would usually be enough to net first place, but actually put her in a tie for second place, half a point behind Irina Krush. Tatev’s strong play and fighting qualities in 2010 earned her the 9 Queens/goddess chess fighting spirit award, which was selected by former Women’s World Champion, Alexandra Kosteniuk. At the 2011 U.S. Women’s Championship, Tatev turned in a remarkable performance, falling just short to Anna Zatonskih in the playoff finals to finish in second place. That same year, Abrahamyan graduated from California State University Long Beach with a double-major in psychology and political science. Tatev is still a strong competitor at the U.S. Women’s Championships and is often a crowd favorite. She is also a regular journalist for Grand Chess Tour tournaments and teaches chess in California.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2563
Federation:
- Saint Louis, MO, U.S.
Age:
- 29
Bio:
- Alejandro Ramirez has become a frequent face the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis as he transplanted from Texas and now lives and works in Saint Louis. Ramirez was inspired by the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer when he was four years old. He became FIDE Master at the age of 9, an International Master at 13, and earned his Grandmaster title by the age of 15. That achievement set Ramirez as the first Centro-American to earn the elite title and, at the time, the second youngest grandmaster. A competitor in three U.S. Championships, Ramirez displayed some of his finest chess in May 2013, when he pushed reigning champion Gata Kamsky to a playoff for the national title. He drew the first two playoff games with Kamsky before losing an Armageddon game where he had 19 minutes and 45 seconds against Kamsky’s 45 minutes. Ramirez studied video game design at the University of Texas at Dallas, earning a master’s degree in Arts & Technology, and he now currently serves as an editor for the popular chess news website ChessBase. Ramirez expertise has made him the natural selection for the new Saint Louis University chess team head coach position. The team made it to the final four of the Pan-American games in its first year. Along with coaching chess, Ramirez is a regular broadcast commentator in both English and Spanish for the Chess Club and Scholastic Center.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2536
Federation:
- Greece
Age:
- 24
Bio:
- Antonios Pavlidis was born in Kavala, Greece. He started playing chess at the age of 8 in the local Chess Club of Kavala, where he is still a member. His greatest achievement is winning Greek Men’s Championship three times in 2011,2012 and 2017 and the Greek Youth Championship four times. He has also won two very strong open tournaments in Belgrad (Belgrad Trophy) 2015 and Kavala (Kavala Chess Open) the same year. He has also shared 2nd place in the European Youth Chess Championships twice, in 2007 and 2008, and in the same section in 2009 he finished 12th . In the Team Section, Greece has won the Greek Team Championship four times and Antonios is a member of the Greek National Team. He has also graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he studied for 5 years in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Tag:
Title:
- International Master
Rating:
- 2455
Federation:
- India
Age:
- 23
Bio:
- Rao Prasanna is an International Master from India. His highest Elo rating was 2477 in February 2017. He is ranked in the top 50 players in India currently. Rao Prasanna is currently a graduate student at The University of Texas at Dallas and a member of their chess team.
Tag:
Title:
- Woman Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2432
Federation:
- China
Age:
- 20
Bio:
- Ni Shiqun is a Chinese chess player. Ni won the inaugral Asian University Chess Championship in the women’s division in 2015 and won the Women’s World University Chess Championship in the following year. Earlier this year, Ni made it to the quarter finals of the Women’s World Chess Championship.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2505
Federation:
- Dallas, TX, U.S.
Age:
- 23
Bio:
- Angel Arribas Lopez is a Spanish Grandmaster studying at UTD and living in Dallas. Angel’s best results from this year is tying for 2nd place at the U.S. Open that took place in early August and tying for 1st place at the Philadelphia Open in April. Also, in the past, he has been 4th in the World Chess Championship U18 and has won the Spanish Championship multiple times.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2536
Federation:
- Brookfield, WI, U.S.
Age:
- 30
Bio:
- Josh was born and raised in New Hampshire, where he started playing tournament chess at the age of six. He was State Champion of New Hampshire three times and Northern California twice. Friedel participated in six U.S. Championships, tying for 4th in 2008. In 2009, Josh won the Edmonton International with 7/9 as well as the Toronto Open with a perfect 5/5 score. He has also won or tied for first in numerous open tournaments across the United States, including the Pan Am, Eastern, Saint Louis, National, and American Opens. Friedel was the 2013 U.S. Open Champion. He is also the current North American Open Champion, his second win at that event. Josh currently resides in a suburb of Milwaukee, where he divides his time between playing tournaments and teaching.
Tag:
Title:
- Grandmaster
Rating:
- 2561
Federation:
- Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.
Age:
- 49
Bio:
- Alexander Shabalov realized chess would be his profession after winning the Latvian junior championship at the age of 11. He went on to win the Under-16 Championship of the Soviet Union in 1982. The four-time U.S. Champion is known for no-holds barred chess, and he thrives on wild moves. Known for fighting chess, Shabalov rarely proposes or accepts early draw offers. In the 2003 U.S. Championship, there were eight Grandmasters vying for first place. After fifteen minutes, the stage was almost empty. All the other contenders had drawn their games, ensuring them a decent payday but depriving fans of exciting, high-stakes chess. Shabalov’s game was the exception. He played a six hour slug-fest against Varuzhan Akobian, ending in a victory for Shabalov. In addition to the 25K he won for first place, main sponsor Erik Andersson awarded Alex and Varuzhan $5,000 each for their fighting spirit. Shabalov won clear first in the U.S. Championship four years later in Tulsa, Oklahoma, besting Kudrin in the final to edge out the defending champion, 2006 Champ Alexander Onischuk. GM Shabalov is always a serious contender for the crown.
Tag: