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Faces Of Chess In 2024: How Many Do You Know?
Can you identify leading chess newsmakers?

Faces Of Chess In 2024: How Many Do You Know?

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When you think about chess in 2024, who comes to mind? Several players were in chess news very prominently last year. This is a test to see how many you know by just looking at their photos.

Chess players
Who are these chess players? (Photo credits below.)

Which of these faces do you recognize? Can you name them without any hints? If you need a hint, scroll down below to the number of the photo that you are having trouble identifying. However, don’t scroll yet and peek at the end where the answers are at the bottom.

Identify These Chess Newsmakers

First, here are the hints:

  1. In July 2024, this player, who is a three-time French Chess Champion, won the CrunchLabs Masters leg of the Champions Chess Tour by defeating GM Alireza Firouzja in the final.
  2. This Russian super grandmaster who has twice won the Candidates Tournament to play for the world championship lost 4-1 to GM Magnus Carlsen in the 2024 Champions Chess Tour Finals but still earned $105,000 in the tournament.
  3. This grandmaster, a seven-time Brazilian champion, is well-known for his thorough analysis and annotations of the Games of the Day of selective tournament reports.
    Rafael Leitao at Sao Paulo Chess Club
    This player, known for his game annotations, started attending the Sao Paulo Chess Club in Brazil in the late 1980s when his career was just beginning. Photo: Instagram.
  4. This grandmaster recently established a new initiative aimed at nurturing the talents of young chess players from underserved communities in the United States.
  5. This chess personality is a FIDE master widely known and respected for his interviews, videos, and commentary.
  6. In 2024, this player won her third U.S. Women's Championship after starting with an amazing 8/8 score before winning with a round to spare.
    Carissa Yip at 2024 U.S. Women's Championship.
    This player stormed to an 8/8 lead in the U.S. Women's Championship. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club.
  7. This grandmaster from Belarus is only 18 years old. He was the youngest player in the Champions Chess Tour Finals.
  8. In the Women's 45th FIDE Chess Olympiad, this player won her first seven games before suffering her first loss. However, this 16-year-old from Liberia doesn’t have a chess title (so she can’t play in Bullet Brawl).
  9. This player became the youngest-ever player to record a rating of 2600, demolishing the previous record by close to a year. Playing on board three for Turkiye in the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest, he scored 8/11 points, which was a rating performance of 2636.
    Erdogmus with Turkish Olympiad team
    This player was on board three for the Turkish team at the 2024 Olympiad. Photo: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com.
  10. This player is the new world champion after defeating the defending title holder GM Ding Liren of China in the 2024 FIDE World Championship.
  11. This former world champion just won the 2024 Champions Chess Tour Finals in Oslo, Norway.
  12. This four-time Women's World Champion won the 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship. In gaining her first WSCC title, she also won $15,409.09.
    Bracket of 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship
    Who won the 2024 Julius Baer Women's Speed Chess Championship? Image: Chess.com.

How To Score

If you recognize 10 or more faces, consider yourself a grandmaster of chess news. If your score is 7 to 9, consider yourself knowledgeable but with room to grow. If your score 6 or less, you might have been playing Puzzle Rush too much this past year. For 2025, make a resolution to watch more tournament events and read the news about them.

Who Are The Chess Photographers?

First, before identifying the newsmakers, let's acknowledge that without chess photographers, we would be lost. Here’s a shoutout (and credit) to several whose photos are in this article—WFM Maria Emelianova, Eng China An, FM Mike Klein, Lennart Ootes, and Michal Walusza:

Photo 1: Chess.com. Photo 2: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com. Photo 3: Chess.com. Photo 4: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com. Photo 5: Chess.com. Photo 6: Lennart Ootes/Saint Louis Chess Club. Photo 7: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com. Photo 8: Michal Walusza/FIDE. Photo 9: Mike Klein/Chess.com. Photo 10: Eng Chin An/FIDE. Photo 11: Maria Emelianova/Chess.com. Photo 12: Chess.com.

Maria Emelianova
Maria Emelianova, known as PhotoChess, is also a top chess streamer. Image: Chess.com.

Chess Newsmakers In 2024

How well did you do? Here are their identities: 

  1. GM Maxime Vachier-Lagrave

  2. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi

  3. GM Rafael Leitao

  4. GM Maurice Ashley

  5. FM Mike Klein

  6. IM Carissa Yip

  7. GM Denis Lazavik

  8. Abigail Karyah

  9. GM Yagiz Erdogmus

  10. GM Gukesh Dommaraju

  11. GM Magnus Carlsen

  12. GM Ju Wenjun


How successful were you? Which photos were the hardest to identify?

raync910
Ray Linville

Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021.  This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.

At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.

He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.

This blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America. In addition, I have also been the recipient of first-place awards for online review, feature article, humorous contribution, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article. Articles that won these awards are:

In addition, my article "How Knight Promotions Win Chess Games" was selected by Chess.com as "Blog of the Month."

Be sure to check out these articles as well as others that I have posted. I hope you enjoy reading what I have written and will follow this blog to see my future posts.