Alexander Grischuk (b. October 31 1983) is a chess grandmaster from Russia. His FIDE rating in July 2007 was 2726, making him the world's fourteenth-ranked player. In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000 he made it to the semi finals. In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 he made it to the quarter finals, where he lost 3-1 to Rustam Kasimdzhanov. He finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE World Cup, …

David Howell (b. November 14, 1990) is the youngest FIDE Grandmaster of chess in the United Kingdom, a title he earned when he came second during the 35th Rilton Cup in Stockholm on 5 January 2007 when he was 16; the previous record holder, Michael Adams was a year older when he became grandmaster. Howell has been playing chess since the age of five years and eight months, …

Stefan Meyer-Kahlen is a German programmer of the computer chess program "Shredder". His program had won 10 titles as World Computer Chess Champion as of January 1, 2006. Four of the titles were blitz championships. Shredder 9.0 has a rating of 2818 on the January 3, 2006 SSDF rating list. He also invented the Universal Chess Interface, a chess engine protocol.

Joshua Waitzkin (born December 4 1976, New York City) is a chess player, martial arts competitor, and author. As a child he was recognized as a prodigy, and won the U.S. Junior Chess championship in 1993 and 1994. He began playing the game at the age of six, having discovered it while wandering through Washington Square Park in New York City. It was there, while playing blitz chess with the hustlers, that he was "discovered" by Bruce Pandolfini, a chess author and teacher, …

Kateryna Lahno is a Ukrainian chess player. She earned the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM) at the age of 12 years and 4 months, breaking Judit Polgar's record to become the youngest ever to earn this title. She also holds the International Master (IM) title. Born in Lviv, Lahno grew up in the industrial and chess-friendly town Kramatorsk. In 2005 she lives in Donetsk. As of October 2006, she had two of three norms necessary to earn the Grandmaster title.

Bernard Zuckerman (b. March 31 1943 in Brooklyn, New York) is an International Master of chess. For more than forty years Zuckerman has been a well known authority on chess openings. At the 1959 US Open Chess Championship in Omaha, Nebraska Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier, who won the tournament, often asked Zuckerman, then a Class B Chess Player, what opening to play and then followed his advice.

Bill Robertie is a backgammon, chess, and poker player and author. He is one of two backgammon players who's ever won the Monte Carlo World Championship Backgammon twice (in 1983 and in 1987). Robertie also won the Pro-Am at Bahamas in the year 1993 and the Istanbul World Cup in 1994. In chess, Robertie won the U.S. Speed Chess tournament. Robertie coauthored a popular series of books on tournament no-limit Texas hold'em with 1995 World Champion Dan Harrington.

Leif Erlend Johannessen, born 1980, is a Norwegian chess player, and Norway's fifth International Grandmaster. He received his title in 2002. He picked up his first norm in Oslo, the second at Bermuda and finally the third in the Sigeman tournament in Malmö. Johannessen has yet to win the Norwegian championship, the closest he has come is second place in 1999 after losing the play-off 0-2 to Berge Østenstad.

Abe Turner (1924-1962) was an American chess master. He had a chess rating over 2400 and played several times in the U.S. Chess Championship. He was best known as a blitz chess hustler, and was one of the few chess masters who had a winning record with Bobby Fischer. Turner was born in New York City. He learned how to play chess in 1943 at a naval hospital while recovering from shrapnel wounds inflicted during World War II.

Michael Valvo (April 19 1942 in New York - September 18 2004 in Chanhassen, Minnesota) was an International Master of chess. By 1962, he was one of the top blitz players in the United States. He won the 1963 U.S. Intercollegiate Championship. A native of Albany, N.Y. and a graduate of Columbia University, Valvo was a member of the U.S. team that competed in the 11th Student Olympiad in Cracow, Poland, in 1964.

Vasja Pirc (December 19, 1907 - 1980) was a leading Slovenian chess player. His name is most familiar to contemporary players as the originator of the hypermodern Pirc Defense. Although Pirc had a minus record against Alexander Alekhine, …

David Penkalski (1962-) USCF Chess Senior Master, rated 2414, U.S. Open Blitz chess Champion (1994) and in the top fifty US Chess Players in 2000, as well as the Wisconsin State Champion (1991), and Milwaukee City Champion. Senior Master Penkalski also was an instructor at the Whitewater Instructional Summer Chess Camp in Wisconsin. Other notables to teach at the weeklong Wisconsin summer camp are IM Silman, Kaidanov, Gurevich, GM Zsófia Polgár, and GM Yasser Seirawan.