Peter Leko is a Hungarian chess grandmaster and commentator. He became the world's youngest grandmaster in 1994. He narrowly missed winning the Classical World Chess Championship 2004: the match was drawn 7–7 and so Vladimir Kramnik retained the title. He also came fifth in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005 and fourth in the World Chess Championship 2007.
Pyotr Veniaminovich Svidler, commonly known as Peter Svidler, is a Russian chess grandmaster and an eight-time Russian Chess Champion who now frequently commentates on chess.
Mark Callano Paragua is a Filipino chess grandmaster. He won the Philippine Chess Championship in 2012. He was the youngest Filipino master ever, at nine years of age. He also became the youngest Filipino GM ever at 20, beating Eugenio Torre's record by about two years.
Anna Olehivna Muzychuk is a Ukrainian chess player who holds the title of 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.
Sergey Alexandrovich Karjakin is a Russian chess grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he previously held the record for the world's youngest ever grandmaster, having qualified for the title at the age of 12 years and 7 months.
Pentala Harikrishna is an Indian chess grandmaster. He became the youngest grandmaster from India after attaining the title in 2001, a record now held by Gukesh D. He was Commonwealth Champion in 2001, World Junior Champion in 2004, and Asian Individual Champion in 2011. He is currently third highest rated player in India. Harikrishna won the Tata Steel Group B in 2012 and the Biel MTO Masters Tournament Open event in 2013. He represented India at seven Chess Olympiads from 2000 to 2012 and won team Bronze at the World Team Chess Championships in 2010. At the Asian Team Championships, Harikrishna won team gold once, team silver twice and individual bronze once.
Boris Gelfand is a Belarusian-Israeli chess player.
Ni Hua is a Chinese chess grandmaster and the national team captain. He is three-time national champion. In 2003, he became China's 15th Grandmaster at the age of 19. In April 2008, Ni Hua and Bu Xiangzhi both became the second and third Chinese players to pass the 2700 Elo rating mark, after Wang Yue.
The first African Chess Championship was played in 1998. Ibrahim Hasan Labib and Mohamed Tissir both shared first place with 7/10, but the former took the title.
The Chess World Cup 2007 served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2010. It was held as a 128-player single-elimination tournament, between 24 November and 16 December 2007, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia.
Ahmed Adly is an Egyptian chess Grandmaster. As a chess prodigy, Adly acquired his International Master title in 2001 at the age of 14 at the U20 Championship of 2004. Adly then went on to earn his Grandmaster title in 2005, making him the first Egyptian and the youngest ever African to achieve this feat. As of May 2022, Adly holds the second-highest rating in Egypt and Africa.
Robert Gwaze is a Zimbabwean chess player. He is a former student at Prince Edward School, in Harare. At age 15, he was a Zimbabwe National Chess Champion at both junior and senior levels.
Johannes Manyedi Mabusela is a South African chess player. He was awarded the title International Master by FIDE. He won the African Junior Chess Championship in 2002.
Akshayraj Kore, is an Indian chess player and a Grandmaster. In 2006, he became Maharashtra's youngest International Master at the time after he won the Invitational IM Norm Round Robin Chess Tournament in Luhansk, Ukraine. In February 2013, he became India's 32nd Grandmaster.
Henry Robert Steel is a South African chess player. He was awarded the title International Master by FIDE in 2014. He has won the South African Chess Championship twice, in 2007 and 2011.
Asma Houli, is an Algerian chess player and African Women's Chess Championship winner (2001).
Farida Arouche, is an Algerian Woman International Master and African Women's Chess Championship winner (2003).
Ali Farahat is an Egyptian and American chess player who received the FIDE title of International Master (IM) in 2005. He won the Egyptian chess championship in 2014. Since April 2019, he plays for the United States Chess Federation.
The chess events at the 2003 All-Africa Games were held from 5 to 17 October at the Nicon Hilton Hotel in Abuja. This was the first time chess was contested at the All-Africa Games. The four events were men's and women's team competitions at rapid time controls, and men's and women's individual competitions at blitz time controls. Teams played matches on four boards: each team consisted of a minimum of four players and up to two optional reserve players. In the team competitions, medals were awarded to the teams scoring the highest number of board points, as well as to individual players with the best performances on each board in terms of win percentage.
The African Junior Chess Championship is an annual chess tournament open to players in Africa who are under 20 years of age. The tournament was first held in 1980, and since its second edition in 1989, has been held annually with the exception of 2010. Beginning in 2002, a separate championship for girls has been held concurrently with the open championship.
