Sabina Foisor

With WGM Cristina Adela Foisor and IM Ovidiu-Doru Foisor for parents, the expectations were sure to be high for Sabina Foisor’s chess career -- and she just might have already exceeded them. Sabina was already participating in chess tournaments by the age of four and, by the time she was eighteen, she had already been crowned a Romanian and European Junior Chess Champion, scored fifth place in the 2007 European Women’s Chess Championship, qualified for the 2008 World Women’s Chess Championship, and had achieved her WGM title.

Foisor credits much of her early success to the intense mentorship she received from her parents as a child—each day devoting five-to-seven hours studying and playing chess. While her parents have been her biggest chess influence, she says her favorite players are Gary Kasparov and the late Bobby Fischer. Like many U.S Championship players, she has traveled the globe playing chess tournaments, and she has participated in each of the past six U.S. Women's Championships (2009-2014). With each passing tournament, Sabina continues to strive towards her goal: To become one of the top-20 female players in the world.

When not playing or training for chess, Foisor likes to travel, read books, watch movies and hang out with friends. "Of course I can manage to balance chess with other things," she says. She has many heroes outside of chess, including her family, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Sigmund Freud. After listing those three, she added, "I will stop here because the list would be too large."