Our starting line up will likely feature:

GM Bator Sambuev was Canadian champion in 2011 and 2012, and Canada's representative to the FIDE World Cup in Tromso in 2013. Bator also played 1st board for Canada at the 2012 Olympiad in Istanbul. Bator is well known to Canadian chess fans for his many tournament victories in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph and Aurora.

IM Nikolay Noritsyn was Canadian champion in 2007, and won the Quebec Open in 2011 and the Ontario Open this summer at the Annex in Toronto. He was also Toronto Blitz champion in 2015 and co-champion in 2016.

GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon came in 1st at the Montreal Open this year ahead of Sambuev. He was also a key part of the Canadian Olympiad team in 2006, 2008 and 2010. Thomas particularly relishes his games against strong GMs, and so could be a player to watch.

GM Gergely-Andras-Gyula Szabo lives in Romania, but has acted as a coach to many of Canada's top juniors including Canada's latest GM Razvan Preotu and 2014 U14 girls world champion Qiyu Zhou. Gergely visited Canada this summer winning the Guelph Summer ProAm. In Europe, he has many blitz, rapid and standard tournament victories to his name.

GM Razvan Preotu of Burlington is Canada's latest sensation. He scored clear first at Calgary International earlier this year ahead of GMs Gata Kamsky and Kayden Troff. He also has gone down to the States to play in the World Open and Spice Cup picking up quite a few GM scalps there as well.

IM Raja Panjwani originally of Kitchener travels the world playing in strong tournaments, finishing ahead of American GM Daniel Naroditsky at the Quebec Invitational 2012 and ahead of French GM Arkadij Naiditsch at Reykjavik 2014.

FM Shiyam Thavandiran as noted below was at one time a member of the Scarborough Chess Club. Shiyam was Canadian University champion in 2012, and finished 1st ahead of Sambuev at the Toronto Labour Day Open and Thanksgiving Open in 2008.

IM Kaiqi Yang was one of China's great hopes, but is currently studying in college in Toronto. He won a prize for being the top U2400 player at Millionaire Chess, Las Vegas 2015, came first at the National Chess Congress in Philadelphia 2015 ahead of Gata Kamsky, and also came first at the Korean Open in 2008 shared with U.S. GM Jaan Ehlvest.

IM Arthur Calugar has kindly agreed to serve as assistant manager for the Dragons. He was an extremely strong junior winning the North American U16 Youth championship in 2010, Hart House Reading Week in 2011 and Canadian Youth Championship in 2012.

IM Michael Song is Canada's newest IM. He came in first in the North American Youth Championships and Canadian Youth Championships this year, was Toronto Closed champion in 2013, and took bronze at the World Youth Championship in 2011.

Toronto Dragons Taxi Squad

Super Admins