Which GM's have you met in person?

I was at a coffee shop called Monks in New York.  I was in the restroom on the toilet after having done my thing when noticed there was no toilet paper left. I asked the person in the stall next to me if he could spare a square. He refused, saying every square was valuable, and left. Later, while finishing my coffee I noticed the man with the exact same shoes on at the table across from mine, and he was calculating the daily puzzle in the newspaper. Bobby Fischer.

Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, it was many years back. I was with my friends George, Elaine, and Cosmo

Does it count if I met them before they became GMs? There are many at the Marshall Chess Club.

That sounds like a bad episode of Seinfeld to me.  lol

Sure.  Why not?   lol

Well, I'm going to forget a ton of them, and I won't count anyone who I just said "hi" to. There has to be at least a conversation or some sort of shared gathering (private party or something) they're not on my list...

Hikaru Nakamura - he's a friend
Mesgen Amanov - he's a friend
Var Akobian - he's a friend
Josh Friedel - he's a friend and coach
Priya Kannappan - he's a friend
Awonder Liang - he's a friend
Gata Kamsky - he's a friend
Susan Polgar - she's a friend
Suat Atalik - he's a friend

Bartok Macieja
Efstratios Grivas
Irina Krush
Fabiano Caruana
Eric Hansen
Robin Van Kampen
Anish Giri
MVL
Lev Aronian
Veselin Topalov
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Yasser Seirawan
Elshan Moradiabadi
Gregory Kaidanov
Alex Yermolinsky
Alejandro Ramirez
Cristian Chirila
Larry Christiansen
Ben Finegold
Maurice Ashley
Dmitry Gurevich
Jesse Kraai
Yury Shulman
Marc Arnold
Fidel Corralles
Robert Hess
Igor Ivanov
Alex Ivanov
Timur Gareev
Joel Benjamin
John Fedorowicz (didn't meet him in person but interviewed him over the phone)
Julio Granda Zuniga
Mickey Adams

Oops, I forgot Lev Alburt. We didn't meet per se, but talked on the phone in the process of co-writing an article together.

talked to korchnoi twice.

one time he was very nice and boring, and the 2nd time he was angry and hella funny.

I would love to have met Viktor. That's awesome!

I've actually played 3 different GMs in simuls, with a record of 0-1-2 (!)

Age 30 --drew against GM Patrick Wolff

Age 15--drew against GM Pal Benko (in 1978, about 20 years past his prime)

Age 14--lost to GM Victor Korchnoi (in 1977, when he was top 5 in the world).

 

Also, at around age 16, I lost a blitz game to Yasser Seirawan, around the time he won the World Junior Title.  He was really cool, and he even complimented one of my moves.  

 

The funniest part is that he was angry the 2nd time because a friend of mine who is 'merely' an FM drew him

Arthur Bisguier  won from him at US Open in Chicago 1973  RIP

 

Stephen Ham  he was top player in a team i played against per

the internet.  He is a correspondence grandmaster and rated #2

in the United States  [i won against the team-game took almost 1 year]

 

Daniel Fleetwood He is a correspondence grandmaster and rated #3

in the USA---This was in a preliminary section leading to the USA

Correspondence Championship.  [i won the game]

so i might say i only met/played against 3 current grandmasters but won all 3 games!? 

Yasser Seirawan at Tata Steel this year. He signed my scorecard after my first OTB win at Tata Steel against an 11 year old prodigy...he was standing next to a Dutch pop star who was flabbergasted that I didn't ask him for an autograph! Great guy is Yasser.

Yeah, Yasser is awesome!

Also I forgot Yaro Zherebukh in my list above.

Chris, the number of grandmasters you have met is amazing!!

I just got lucky and had some well connected friends who let me get a foot in the door.

NONE.... BUT I WISH I MET ONE OR 2

THAT'S CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WISH I MET ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!! AND SOME OF THEM ARE YOUR FRIENDS?????!!!!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!! THATS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!