Grandmaster (GM) is a title awarded to chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain. Once achieved, the title is held for life, though exceptionally the title can be revoked for cheating.
Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster, widely regarded as the strongest female chess player of all time. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, at the time the youngest to have done so, breaking the record previously held by former world champion Bobby Fischer. She was the youngest player ever to break into the FIDE top 100 players rating list, ranking No. 55 in the January 1989 rating list, at the age of 12.
The Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess or esports. It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor.
Michael Adams is an English chess grandmaster and is an eight-time British Chess Champion. His highest ranking is world No. 4, achieved several times from October 2000 to October 2002. His peak Elo rating is 2761, the highest achieved by an English chess player.
Koneru Humpy is an Indian chess grandmaster. She's a runner-up of the World Championship and the winner of the World Rapid Championship 2019. In 2002, she became the youngest woman ever to achieve the title of Grandmaster aged 15 years, 1 month, 27 days. Humpy is a gold medalist at the Olympiad, Asian Games, and Asian Championship. She is also the first Indian female grandmaster.
Anna Olehivna Muzychuk is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster (GM). She is the fourth woman in chess history to attain a FIDE rating of at least 2600. She has been ranked as high as No. 197 in the world, and No. 2 among women. Muzychuk is a three-time world champion in fast chess, having won the Women's World Rapid Chess Championship once in 2014 and the Women's World Blitz Chess Championship twice in 2014 and 2016. In classical chess, she was the 2017 Women's World Championship runner-up.
Friðrik Ólafsson is an Icelandic chess grandmaster. He was president of FIDE from 1978 to 1982. He is a six-time Icelandic Chess Champion and a two-time Nordic Chess Champion.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) governs international chess competition. Each month, FIDE publishes the lists "Top 100 Players", "Top 100 Women", "Top 100 Juniors" and "Top 100 Girls" and rankings of countries according to the average rating of their top 10 players and top 10 female players in the classical time control. The Elo rating system is used.
Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi is a Russian chess grandmaster.
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess grandmaster. Polgár was Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 to 1999. On FIDE's Elo rating system list of July 1984, at the age of 15, she became the top-ranked female chess player in the world. In 1991, she became the third woman to be awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE. She won eleven medals at the Women's Chess Olympiad.
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and norms. Once awarded, titles are held for life except in cases of fraud or cheating. Open titles may be earned by all players, while women's titles are restricted to female players. Many strong female players hold both open and women's titles. FIDE also awards titles for arbiters, organizers and trainers. Titles for correspondence chess, chess problem composition and chess problem solving are no longer administered by FIDE.
Tamara Asherawna Golovey is a Chess Master, Chess International Arbiter and the Merited Coach of the Republic of Belarus. Her United States Chess Federation rating (USCF) is 2322.
Darrian Robinson is an American chess player. As of 2014, she was the highest rated African American female player in the United States Chess Federation system. She holds the USCF title of Candidate Master and her most recent USCF rating is 2086.
Gukesh Dommaraju, also known as Gukesh D, is an Indian chess grandmaster. He is the third-youngest grandmaster in history, the third-youngest to reach a chess rating of 2700, the youngest to reach a rating of 2750, the youngest Candidates Tournament winner and the youngest contender to compete for the World Championship. He has won one team and two individual gold medals at the Olympiad as well as one bronze team medal. He is a silver medalist at the Asian Games.
Miron Naumovich Sher was a Soviet-born American chess player, who was awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM) by FIDE in 1992. Towards the end of the Soviet era, he began winning the open sections at international tournaments. In 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, Sher became a Russian citizen. In 1997, Sher, his wife, Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Alla Grinfeld (ru), and their son, Mikhail, who then was 14, emigrated to America and settled in Brooklyn. Sher went on to become a distinguished scholastic chess coach and clinician in New York and was instrumental in developing several internationally strong players, notably Fabiano Caruana, many times number two in the world, and Robert Hess, who at age 15, while attending Stuyvesant High School, became an international master and at 16, a grandmaster. Before immigrating, Sher had also coached a number of students around Europe, including Peter Heine Nielsen.
Women represent a small minority of chess players at all ages and levels. Female chess players today generally compete in a mix of open tournaments and women's tournaments, the latter of which are most prominent at or near the top level of women's chess and at youth levels. Modern top-level women's tournaments help provide a means for some participants to be full-time professional chess players. The majority of these tournaments are organized by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and revolve around the World Championship cycle, which culminates in a match to decide the Women's World Chess Champion. Beyond those events, among the most prominent women's tournaments are women's and girls' national and continental championships.
Gloria Nansubuga is a Ugandan Chess player who became the youngest chess player in Ugandan history to be awarded a chess title of Woman FIDE Master by the year 2018.
The 45th Chess Olympiad was an international team chess event organised by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in Budapest, Hungary, from 10 to 23 September 2024.
Jack Mizzi is a Maltese chess player. He was born on the 17 May 2006 in Malta. Mizzi is the 2024 Malta Chess Champion, the U-20 Junior Chess Champion, the National Rapid Chess Champion and the National Blitz Chess Champion in Malta. Mizzi is the youngest chess player to have won the Preliminaries in Malta at 13 years old. At 16 years old he became the youngest Maltese player to be awarded the Candidate Master title. He was called a chess "prodigy" by the online journal Malta Today in their short documentary about Mizzi. Mizzi participated in the World Youth Chess Championships in Romania 2022. In 2023 he set a new Malta chess record winning the Malta Blitz Championship with a perfect 9-0 score.
Anna Denisovna Burtasova is a Russian-born Canadian chess player. She was awarded the title of Woman Grandmaster by FIDE in 2009, gaining all three of her norms in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 2010 she was listed as the chief strategy office for the Chess Network Company. She switched federations from Russia to Canada in 2019. In 2022 Burtasova was among several Russian chess players who signed a letter denouncing the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and calling for an immediate ceasefire.
United States