- Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer is a United States-born chess Grandmaster who in 1972 became the only US-born chessplayer to become the official World Chess Champion. In 1974 he officially resigned the title when FIDE, the international chess federation, refused to accept his conditions for a title defense. He is a regular candidate in considerations of the greatest chess player of all time.
- Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasskij) (born January 30, 1937) is a Russian-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky won the Soviet Championship twice outright (1961, 1973), and twice more lost in playoffs (1956, 1963), after tieing for the top during the event proper. He was a World Championship Candidate on seven occasions (1956, 1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, and 1985).
- Vladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (born June 25, 1975) is a Russian chess grandmaster and the current World Chess Champion. In October 2000, he beat Garry Kasparov in a sixteen game match played in London, and became the Classical World Chess Champion. In late 2004, Kramnik successfully defended his title against challenger Péter Lékó in a drawn fourteen game match played in Brissago, Switzerland. In October 2006, Kramnik, the Classical World Champion, …
- Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov (born May 23, 1951) is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He is the most successful tournament player of all time, and as of July 2005 he has 161 first-place finishes to his credit. From 1978 to 1998 he played in every FIDE World Championship match. His overall professional record is 1,118 wins, 287 losses, and 1,480 draws in 3,163 games. His peak Elo rating is 2780. The asteroid 90414 Karpov is named in his honour.
- Susan Polgar
Grandmaster Zsuzsa Polgar is a Hungarian-born American chess player. In 1984, at age 15, she became the top-ranked female player in the world and remained so for many years. She was the first woman to earn the title of International Grandmaster in regular competition. She was the Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 until 1999. In October 2005 Polgar had an Elo rating of 2577, making her still the second-ranked female player in the world, after her sister Judit Polgar.
- Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand (born December 11, 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. Anand is one of only four players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE rating list and he has been among the top three ranked players in classical time control chess in the world continuously since 1997. In the April 2007 FIDE Elo rating list, Anand was ranked first in the world for the first time, …
- Veselin Topalov
Veselin Topalov (born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE world champion. In the April 2007 FIDE rating list, he is ranked second in the world with an Elo rating of 2772. His current trainer and manager is International Master Silvio Danailov. Topalov became the FIDE World Chess Champion by winning the FIDE World Chess Championship 2005. Topalov was awarded the 2005 Chess Oscar.
- Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker (December 24, 1868 - January 11, 1941) was a German chess World Chess Champion and grandmaster, mathematician, and philosopher born at Berlinchen in Brandenburg (now Barlinek in Poland).
- Nigel Short
Nigel Short MBE (born June 1, 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire) is widely regarded as the strongest British chess player of the 20th century. He became a Grandmaster at age 19, and challenged for the World Championship against Garry Kasparov at London 1993. Still active, Short remains in the world's top 30 players, and continues to enjoy international success.
- Paul Morphy
Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess," was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his time, and an unofficial World Chess Champion. He was also one of the first chess prodigy after the creation of the modern rules of chess.
- Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Øen Carlsen is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster who came to international attention after winning the C group of the Corus Chess Tournament in January 2004 at the age of thirteen, and winning the B group of the same tournament two years later at 15. <br>In the July 2007 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2710, making him Norway's number 1, World Juniors' number 2 and World's number 17. On April 26, 2004 Carlsen became Grandmaster at the age of 13 years, 4 months, …
- Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal (November 9, 1936–June 28, 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player, and the eighth World Chess Champion.
- Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (sometimes spelled "Aljechin or Alechin") (October 31 or November 1, 1892 - March 24, 1946) was a Russian-born naturalized French chess grandmaster (officially naturalized in 1927 only three days before the World Champion title), and the fourth World Chess Champion. He was known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style.
- Gata Kamsky
The American Grandmaster Gata Kamsky is traveling to Elista, Russia on May 25th to play candidate matches in his second run for the world chess championship. The previous one ended with Anatoly Karpov defending his title in a match against Kamsky back in 1996 at the very same place of Elista. Maybe the Kalmyk steppe will bring him better luck this time. We'll keep you updated. In the meantime, here are few facts from his rich biography.
- Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp (pronounced) (July 28, 1887 - October 2, 1968) was a French artist (he became an American citizen in 1955) whose work and ideas had considerable influence on the development of post-World War II Western art, and whose advice to modern art collectors helped shape the tastes of the Western art world. While he is most often associated with the Dada and Surrealism movements, his participation in Surrealism was largely behind the scenes, …
- Max Euwe
Machgielis (Max) Euwe (May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess Grandmaster and Mathematician. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion (1935–1937). Euwe also served as President of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) from 1970-1978.
- Mikhail Botvinnik
Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (May 5, 1995) was a Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess.
- Yasser Seirawan
Yasser Seirawan (born March 24, 1960) is a chess grandmaster and 4-time US-champion. He was winner of the World Junior Chess Championship in 1979. He was born in Damascus, Syria. His father was Arab and his mother an English nurse from Nottingham, where he spent some time in his early childhood. When he was seven, his family emigrated to Seattle (USA), where he attended McClure Middle School and Garfield High School, and honed his game at a (now-defunct) coffeehouse, …
- Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm (later William) Steinitz (May 17, 1836, Prague-August 12, 1900, New York) was an Austrian-English-American chess player and the first official world chess champion. Known for his original contributions to chess strategy such as his ideas on positional play, Steinitz, along with Paul Morphy, is considered by many chess commentators to be the founder of modern chess.
- Jeremy Silman
Jeremy Silman (born August 28 1954) is an American International Master of chess. He has won the US Open, the American Open and the National Open. In times past he was the coach of the US junior national chess team. He is the author of more than thirty-five books.
- Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov (Aleksejs Širovs, Алексей Широв, a chess grandmaster. On the July 2007 FIDE rating list he was ranked number eleven in the world with an ELO rating of 2735.
- Tigran Petrosian
Tigran Petrosian (June 17, 1929 - August 13,1984) was a former World Chess Champion. He is often known by the Russian version of his name, Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his playing style because of his almost impenetrable defence, which emphasised safety above all else
- Levon Aronian
Levon Aronian (born October 6 1982) is an Armenian chess player. On the July 2007 FIDE list, he had an Elo rating of 2750, making him number eight in the world and Armenia's number one.
- Michael Adams
Michael Adams is an International Grandmaster of chess. On the July 2007 FIDE rating list he is number fifteen in the world with an Elo rating of 2724, making him the number one British chess player.
- Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi (Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й), born March 23, 1931, in Leningrad, USSR, is a professional Swiss chess player and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the world tournament circuit. Korchnoi is best known for playing three matches against Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Championship. In 1974, he lost the Candidates final to Karpov, who went on to win the World championship by forfeit against Bobby Fischer).
- Paul Keres
Paul Keres was an Estonian chess grandmaster and one of the strongest chess players of all time. On four consecutive occasions he missed the chance of a World Championship match by being runner-up in the Candidates' Tournament. Many claim him to be the strongest player never to become World Chess Champion. He was dubbed "The Crown Prince of Chess".
- Vassily Ivanchuk
Vassily Ivanchuk, also transliterated as Vasyl (born March 18 1969), is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. Ivanchuk has an Elo rating of 2762 on the FIDE July 2007 ratings list, making him number four in the world and Ukraine's number one. Ivanchuk was born in Berezhany, Ukraine, and reached chess world fame at the age of 21 when he won the Linares tournament in 1991. Fourteen players participated, eight of them rated top-ten of the world, …
- John Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn (born April 25, 1955 in London) is an English chess player and mathematician. John Nunn went up to Oriel College, Oxford, to study mathematics when he was only 15 years of age in 1970. At the time, it was said that he was Oxford's youngest undergraduate since Cardinal Wolsey. He graduated in 1973, gained his doctorate in 1978 and remained at Oxford University as a mathematics lecturer until 1981, when he became a professional chess player.
- David Bronstein
David Ionovich Bronstein was renowned as a leading chess grandmaster and writer. Described as a creative genius and master of tactics by pundits and plaudits the world over, Bronstein provided ample evidence that chess should be regarded as part science, part art.
- Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947; the surname is pronounced // i.e. with the first syllable sounding like "crow" in English) was a British occultist, writer and mystic. He is perhaps best known today for his occult writings, especially "The Book of the Law", the central sacred text of Thelema. Crowley was also an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, …
- Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine (October 11 1914, New York City, - March 26 1993, New York City) was one of the best chess players in the world during the 1930s, and an International Grandmaster. He was also the author of several chess books which are still popular today. After World War II, he studied psychology, and wrote successful books in that field as well.
- Alexander Morozevich
Alexander Morozevich is a Russian chess player. In the July 2007 FIDE list, he had an ELO rating of 2758, making him number 5 in the world. Morozevich is noted for employing unusual openings. Against the Queen's Gambit, for instance, he has often played the Chigorin Defence (1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nc6), and more recently the Albin Countergambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5); both systems are hardly ever seen at the top level.
- Irina Krush
Irina Krush (b. December 24, 1983) is an American chess player. Born in Odessa, USSR (now Ukraine), she is widely known for her series of chess training videos, the "Krushing Attacks" series. Krush learned to play chess at age five, emigrating with her parents to Brooklyn that same year (1989). At age 14 Krush won the 1998 US Women's Chess Championship to become the youngest U.S. Women's Champion ever.
- Alexandra Kosteniuk
Alexandra Kosteniuk is a Russian chess player who became female European champion in 2004 by winning the tournament in Dresden, Germany. In August 2006 she became the first Chess960 (Fischer Random) women world champion after beating Germany's top female player Elisabeth Pähtz 5.5-2.5. In November 2004, she achieved the International Grandmaster title, becoming the tenth of the eleven women who have received the highest title awarded by the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
- Peter Svidler
Peter Svidler is a Russian chess grandmaster. On the July 2007 FIDE rating list he has an ELO rating of 2735, making him the number twelve in the world. Peter Svidler learned to play chess when he was six years old. He became Grandmaster in 1994. He is four-time Russian champion (1994, 1995, 1997, 2003). In 2001, he reached the semi-finals of the FIDE World Championship. Andrei Lukin is his coach. Svidler is a noted exponent of Fischer Random Chess (also called Chess960).
- Hikaru Nakamura
"Hikaru" Nakamura is an American chess Grandmaster (GM). He was born in Osaka, Japan, to a Japanese father and an American mother and moved with his parents to the United States when he was two years old. Nakamura began playing chess at age seven and was coached by his Sri Lankan stepfather, FIDE Master Sunil Weeramantry. Within three years, at age 10 years and 79 days, Nakamura achieved the title of chess master from the United States Chess Federation (USCF), …
- Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton was an English chess master and unofficial World Chess Champion. He was also a newspaper chess columnist, chess book author, and minor Shakespearean scholar. His name is remembered most today for the style of chess figures he endorsed, the Staunton chess set.
- Jan Timman
Jan Timman is a Dutch chessplayer who had his greatest successes in the 1970s and 1980s. He has won the Dutch Chess Championship nine times. He was a candidate for the World Championship several times. He played for the FIDE World Championship in 1993, losing to Anatoly Karpov. In the 1980s and early 1990s he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and known as "The Best of the West".
- Loek van Wely
Loek van Wely (born October 7 1972) is a chess Grandmaster from the Netherlands. He has been champion of the Netherlands six times. In 2002, in Maastricht, Netherlands, van Wely took on the computer program Rebel in a four game match. The computer won two games and van Wely won two games.
- Teimour Radjabov
Teimour Radjabov, also spelled Teymur Rajabov is a leading chess player from Azerbaijan. On the July 2007 FIDE list, Radjabov had an Elo rating of 2746, ranking ninth in the world and second in his native Azerbaijan. Radjabov earned the title of International Grandmaster in March 2001 at the age of 14, making him the second youngest grandmaster in history at the time. Radjabov's playing style has been described as attacking and tactically influenced.