2015 Showdown in Saint Louis

Hou Yifan has been an extraordinary chess talent from a very young age. She became the youngest player to participate in the FIDE Women's World Championship (2006) and the Chess Olympiad in Torino (2006). In June 2007, she became China's youngest National Women's Champion. In August 2008, at the age of 14, Hou attained the title of International Grandmaster. Just two years later, she became the youngest ever Women's World Chess Champion winning the Women's World Championship in Hatay, Turkey.

Hou became the third woman to enter the world top 100 rankings behind Judit Polgár and Maia Chiburdanidze. As of November 2015, she has maintained her place as the No. 1 female player in the world, and the No. 64 player overall. She declined to defend her Women’s World Championship title in early 2015, instead focusing on her overall chess and rating improvement. Hou has qualified to challenge Women’s World Champion Mariya Muzychuk in a ten-game World Championship in March of 2016.

Parimarjan Negi’s success at the chessboard started at a very early age. He is the second youngest person to achieve the title of International Grandmaster - just behind Russian Super GM Sergei Karjakin, and ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen. Among his best results, Negi won the 11th Asian Chess Championship in 2012, the 2008 Philadelphia Open, and the 2009 & 2013 Politiken Cups in Denmark.

Negi currently stands as the No. 85 player in world with a rating of 2664. He is author of three chess books on 1.e4 opening theory. He currently attends Stanford University.

Parimarjan Negi studied in the Amity International School in New Delhi and won various tournaments there. Negi became the youngest Grandmaster in India on July 1, 2006 by drawing with Russian Grandmaster Ruslan Sherbakov and finished with six points from nine rounds of the Chelyabinsk Region Superfinal chess tournament in Satka. Negi replaces Pendyala Harikrishna as India's youngest ever GM.

Ranked in the world's top-10 players for nearly five years, Nakamura has been the longtime U.S. No. 1 Grandmaster and the leading hopeful to become America’s first World Champion since Bobby Fischer. The chance for that world title creeps ever closer this year, as Nakamura currently sits second place at the halfway point of FIDE's 2014-15 Grand Prix and may earn his first seat in a Candidate's Tournament.

A child prodigy in every sense of the word, Nakamura made a fast impact on U.S. chess by knocking down nearly every age record on his way to the top. He was at one time the youngest American master in history (10 years, 79 days), the youngest American international master (13 years, 2 months) and eventually the youngest American Grandmaster (15 years, 79 days). This broke Fischer’s record by three months.

Nakamura has collected numerous titles and championships since the age of 13, when he first arrived onto the national scene by becoming the 2001 U.S. Junior Champion. He quickly confirmed his place as one of chess’ great elites, shocking the world with a sweet sixteen appearance in the 2004 FIDE World Cup.  Nakamura has had another excellent year in 2015, capturing his fourth U.S. Championship and winning the top prize at the 2015 Millionaire Chess Open in Las Vegas, Nevada.

His accomplishments do not end there. Among them, he was awarded the prestigious Samford Chess Fellowship.  His honors include becoming the 2007 National Open champion and three time winner of the North American Open. He was an individual bronze medalist in the 2006 and 2008 World Olympiad, as well as the gold medalist on the first board of the 2010 World Team Championship, where the United States placed second.

Ever since FIDE began publishing Blitz ratings earlier this year, Nakamura has graced the top of the list, demonstrating his skill and speed.  Nakamura won bronze at the FIDE World Blitz Championship in June 2014, and he currently sits second on FIDE’s Blitz rating.

Fabiano Caruana is an American Grandmaster of Italian descent whose rapid advance into the elite ranks of chess has earned him the reputation as the next rival to Magnus Carlsen for the world championship. He is currently No. 6 in the world with a rating of 2796.

The 23-year-old was born in Miami, Florida and was introduced to chess through an afterschool program as a five-year-old in Brooklyn, New York, living near Bobby Fischer’s childhood home. This same year, he played in his first tournament at the Susan Polgar Chess Center in Queens, New York.  This landed Caruana his first coach, NM Bruce Pandolfini

At 10 years old, Caruana became the youngest American to defeat a GM in a sanctioned event. By 12 years old, he was a FIDE master and winner of several national scholastic championships, as well as two gold medals in Pan-American Youth Championships. When it became evident that chess would be his future, Caruana and his family moved to Europe.

Caruana was a four-time Italian national champion and today is one of the hottest players on the global scene. He crossed the super-elite threshold of 2800 after winning the 42nd Sparkassen Chess Meeting in Dortmund, Germany. He was the eighth player in history to pass the 2800 barrier. He secured the tournament win in the penultimate round without losing a game.

In 2014, Caruana achieved two impressive results - he placed second behind Magnus Carlsen in the World Rapid Championship and won the Sinquefield Cup with a remarkable score of eight and a half out of ten.  

In early 2015, after spending ten years as a member of the Italian Chess Federation, Caruana rejoined the United States Chess Federation as one of its strongest members. Now that he is a member of the USCF, he qualifies to play for the US Olympiad team and also in the 2016 US Chess Championship and 2016 Candidates Tournament.