Top Chess Players in United States

GM Awonder Liang 2704 | #31

Awonder Liang is an American grandmaster and the 2011 World U8 Champion. He’s well-known for being the youngest player ever to defeat a grandmaster in a standard tournament game when at the age of 9 years, three months, and 20 days, he beat GM Larry Kaufman. Liang is also the second-youngest grandmaster...

GM Jeffery Xiong 2656 | #51

American GM Jeffery Xiong has completed an impressive career as an elite junior chess player. For starters, he’s the third-youngest U.S. player to qualify for the grandmaster title. His array of accomplishments spans winning the world under-10 championship in 2010, taking the world junior championship...

GM Sam Shankland 2647 | #60

Samuel L. “Sam” Shankland was born October 1, 1991 in Berkeley, California. He has represented the country of his birth his entire chess career, a relative rarity for American grandmasters of the past 40 years. Making IM and GM 2016 Chess Olympiad 2018 U.S. Championship Other Tournaments Present...

GM Grigoriy Oparin 2643 | #66

Grigoriy Oparin is a Russian chess player who earned his grandmaster title in 2013. He was Russia's 2014 junior champion. Oparin nearly qualified for the 2022 Candidates Tournament by tying GM Fabiano Caruana for second place at the 2021 Riga Grand Swiss. However, he finished in third place because...

GM Abhimanyu Mishra

GM Abhimanyu "Abhi" Mishra is an American chess prodigy. In July 2021, Mishra earned his third norm required to become a grandmaster. With his FIDE rating already above 2500, he became the youngest grandmaster in history at the age of 12 years, four months, and 25 days.  Early Milestones Youngest...

GM Andy Woodward 2635 | #76

IM Andy Woodward is a chess grandmaster from the United States. He earned his IM title in 2022 at the age of 12. On January 30, 2024, he earned his third and final grandmaster norm later becoming one of the youngest GMs in history after FIDE granted him the title at the end of July, 2024. Woodward...

GM Mikhail Al Antipov

GM Mikhail Antipov is an America chess grandmaster who won the 2026 Saint Louis Masters.

GM Christopher Yoo 2607 | #110

Christopher Yoo is an American grandmaster and the 2020 U.S. Cadet (U16) Champion. He won that title with an undefeated performance, eclipsing the field by two and a half points. The same year, the 13-year-old finished in fifth place (out of 10) at the U.S. Junior (U21) Championship. Yoo became the...

GM Brandon Jacobson

Full bio coming soon.

GM Andrew Z Hong 2592 | #133

Andrew Hong is an American chess player who earned his grandmaster title in 2021. In 2022, he was a participant in both the U.S. Junior Chess Championship and the Chess.com Junior Speed Chess Championship.

GM Dariusz Swiercz 2579 | #148

GM Dariusz Swiercz is a Polish-born American chess player who began playing for the United States in 2018. He learned chess at age three and became a grandmaster in 2009 at the age of just 14, making him one of the 30 youngest in history to attain the title and the youngest ever from Poland. His excellent...

GM John M Burke

GM John M. Burke was the 2020 U.S. Junior Chess Champion and a participant in the 2021 U.S. Chess Championship. He became a grandmaster in 2018 and was the youngest player ever to reach a rating of 2600 FIDE.

GM Lazaro Bruzon Batista

Lazaro Bruzon Batista is a Cuban-American grandmaster who switched federations to the United States in 2020. He was World Junior Champion in 2000 and reached the world #26 rating in 2005. Bruzon, a participant in the 2021 U.S. Championship, reached a peak rating of 2717 in 2012.

GM Varuzhan Akobian

Varuzhan Akobian is an Armenian chess grandmaster who qualified for the 2021 FIDE World Cup.

GM Vladimir Akopian 2551 | #190

Vladimir Akopian is an Armenian-American grandmaster. As a young player, Akopian enjoyed great success by winning the U16 World Youth Chess Championship in 1986 and the U18 World Youth Chess Championship two years later. In 1999, Akopian surprised by reaching the final of the FIDE Knockout World Championship....

GM Andrew Tang 2551 | #190

Andrew Tang is an American grandmaster who earned that title in 2017 at the age of 17. Known as "Penguin GM," he is one of the best bullet chess players in the world. Along with GM Hikaru Nakamura, Tang is one of the few players to have achieved a Chess.com bullet rating of 3500. He streams on Twitch...

GM Joshua Friedel 2544 | #209

Joshua Friedel is an American Grandmaster.

GM Kirk Ghazarian

GM Alexander Goldin 2537 | #219

GM Ruifeng Li

Bio coming soon.

GM Conrad Holt

Bio coming soon.

IM Justin Wang 2524 | #252

GM David Brodsky 2510 | #282

GM Praveen Balakrishnan

GM Praveen Balakrishnan is an American chess grandmaster at the University of Chicago.

GM Safal Bora 2500 | #305