2019 Spring Chess Classic

Grandmaster Kaidanov was born in Berdychiv, Ukrainian SSR, USSR. In 1960, he moved to Kaliningrad, Russian. He learned chess from his father when he was 6 years of age. Kaidanov was a member of US national team in 6 World Chess Olympiads and 3 World Team Championships, winning team Gold (Lucerne, Switzerland 1993), Silver (Lucerne,1997 and Elista, Russia, 1998)  and Bronze (Erevan, Armenia 1996). He also won an individual Gold medal in Lucerne 1997 and individual Silver medal in Calvia, Spain in 2004.

Gregory won more than 30 international chess tournaments, including every major American open (World Open, US Open, National Open, Chicago Open, etc) and the first edition of very prestigious Aeroflot Open in Moscow in 2002. He was inducted into the United States Chess Hall of Fame in 2013. Kaidanov has resided in Lexington, Kentucky since 1991, where he coaches the chess team at Sayre School.

Grandmaster Bai was born in Jilin, China in 1999. He started learning chess at the age of 5 and, at nine years old, he joined the Chinese national youth team and won WYCC U10 title in the following year. Bai earned 3 GM norms from three consecutive tournaments in December 2014 and achieved his GM title at the age of 15. One year after, he won the Chinese individual group B championship, the third place in 2016 and second place in 2018 of group A. He also won many open tournaments worldwide such as Cannes Open, Zadar Open, Groningen Open, and North American Open, etc. His current rating is 2572.

Grandmaster Sergey Erenburg began playing chess when he was six years old and has ranked one of the top 20 players in the USA for the past decade. Sergey grew up in Russia, where he consistently placed as one of the top youth players before immigrating to Israel at the age of 15.

While living in Israel, Erenburg won the under 16, 18, and 20 Israeli championship titles, and proceeded with earning his GM title as a 20-year old in 2003. By the end of his 3-year military service, Erenburg won the Israeli Championship in 2004, followed by helping the Israeli National team to win the silver medal at the European Team Championship and making it to the 1/32 final at the World Cup in 2005. In 2006, Sergey decided to pursue an academic degree in the USA, not before taking 9th place at the Blitz World Championship in August 2006.

Erenburg earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Math and Finance from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) from 2007 through 2011, and during that time led the chess program to multiple national titles. Sergey went on to earn an additional master’s degree in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. While working in the financial industry since 2013, Erenburg continued to play competitively and won countless major events, including National Chess Congress (2012 shared, 2014, 2016 (shared), 2018 shared), World Open (2013; shared), North American Open (2014 shared), Continental Class Championship (2012, 2016, both shared), and more.

Cristian is a four time Romanian Junior Championship winner. In April of 2015, Cristian won the World Youth Championship for 16 and under. In 2010 he received a full-ride scholarship to the University of Texas in Dallas and would go on to win the Millionaire Chess Open in the under 2550 rating group.

Chirila was also a part of Fabiano Caruana’s team that won the 2018 Candidates Tournament and followed him to the World Chess Championship match against Magnus Carlsen in London in November 2018. Chirila streams on twitch.tv on the channel "chesschilla" and he plays on chess.com under the pseudonym "TheCount."

Grandmaster Andrey Baryshpolets is from Kyiv, Ukraine. GM Baryshpolets obtained his title as Grandmaster in 2013.  His most significant chess achievements are: the Ukrainian champion under 18 in 2008, winner of Lone Star Open 2018, Winter Chess Classic-B 2017, Golden State Open 2017, Delhi Open 2015, co-winner of Southwest Open 2018, prize-winner of Benasque 2016, and A.Margaryan memorial 2013. He is pursuing a PhD degree in Agricultural & Applied Economics at Texas Tech University. As the member of TTU chess team, Andrey became the Pan-American Intercollegiate champion in 2015, 2 time Southwest Collegiate champion (2017-2018) and 3 time qualifier for the Final Four (2016-2018).

Xiong is the third-youngest grandmaster in the US (after Awonder Liang and Samuel Sevian), having been awarded the GM title in September 2015 at age fourteen. Grandmaster Xiong won the 2016 U.S. Closed Junior Championship, and is currently the highest rated player in the U.S. under the age of eighteen. He is rated 2640 FIDE (URS 2622) making him the ninth highest rated player in the country.

This eighteen-year old from Coppell, Texas has a quite an impressive list of results.  Showing a tenacity beyond his years he has won the 2015 Chicago Open, finished sixth in the 2016 U.S.Championship (the strongest in history), and was awarded the 2016 U.S. Outstanding Player Achievement Award by USCF.  

Grandmaster Aryan Tari is a 19 year old from Norway who started playing chess at the age of 5. He won the Junior section of the Norwegian Chess Championship in 2012 qualifying him for the championship section.  He placed 8th in 2013, 2nd in 2014, and Grandmaster Tari won the 2015 Norwegian Chess Championship. He became GM at 16. In 2017, he became World Champion U20 and has represented Norway in Olympiads in Baku and Batumi. At the

European Individual Chess Championship, May 12–23, 2016, Grandmaster Tari qualified to participate in the Chess World Cup 2017 in Tibilis.

Grandmaster Robson won the 2012 Webster university SPICE cup open, placed second at the 2015 U.S. Championships, and is currently the sixth highest rated player in the U.S. with a FIDE rating of 2649 (URS 2620). Born in Guam, Robson and his family moved to Florida when he was still a toddler.  It was in Florida where he learned to play chess when he was just three years old. From 2004 to 2007, Robson finished in the top 10 at the World Youth Championships. He won the Super- Nationals in 2005, first place in the 2005 and 2006 Pan-american Youth Championships, the 2009 U.S. Junior Championship, and the 2009 world Team Championship.  In 2008, Ray won his first major tournament at the Miami open, and later that year broke Hikaru Nakamura’s record by becoming the youngest American GM (14 years, 11 months and 16 days). Robson graduated from Webster University, where he won the 2012 SPICE Cup Open, and helped the Webster team win three consecutive National titles.

Grandmaster Ilya Nyzhnyk started playing chess at the age of 5. He progressed very fast, and found early success by tying for 2nd at the World Under 12 Chess Championship in 2006. A year later in 2007, he earned his FIDE Master title. He cemented his success with a dominating victory at the Moscow Open Group B tournament by winning it with the score of 8.5 out of 9, and a performance of 2633. Since then, Nyzhnyk has won various international events such as European Youth Championship under 12 in 2007, and under 16 in 2008.  In the beginning of 2011, Nyzhnyk was officially awarded a title of Grandmaster, and continued improving by scoring top 3 in events such as Tata Steel Chess Tournament – GMC, Reykjavik Open 2011, and the Independence Cup-2011. In August 2014, Nyzhnyk began his study at Webster University. Since then, he has been a valuable member of the SPICE program and was on the team which won 5 consecutive PanAm InterCollegiate Chess Championships and 3 straight Final Four Championships. In addition to being a dynamic team player, Nyzhnyk also added to the success of Webster’s Chess Program by winning the U.S. Open, National Open, and 4 World Open titles, etc. He completed his undergraduate degree at Webster University in Computer Science in 2018, and is now working on his graduate degree in Cyber Security.

Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (In 1979  it was still a part of the Soviet Union). He began to play chess very early, earning his Grandmaster at 18, and soon after won the Asian Continental Championship. In 2002, he reached the final of the World Cup (held in Hyderabad, India), losing to Vishy Anand. In 2004, somewhat sensationally, he won the World Championship in Tripoli.  Kasimdzhanov unexpectedly made his way through to the final, winning mini-matches against Alejandro Ramírez, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami, Vassily Ivanchuk, Zoltán Almási, Alexander Grischuk and Veselin Topalov to meet Michael Adams to play for the title and the right to face world number one Garry Kasparov in a match. In the final six-game match of the Championship, both players won two games, making a tie-break of rapid games necessary. Kasimdzhanov won the first game with black, after having been in a difficult position. By drawing the second game he became the new FIDE champion.

Kasimdzhanov has played in 12 Olympiads for Uzbekistan, the first one in 1996. In 2010 Kasimdzhanov won the gold medal at the Asian Games in Guangzhou.

Kasimdzhanov started coaching in 2008, helping Anand in his match against Kramnik. In 2011, he was a coach of the German national team, which won the European team Championship. He worked with Karjakin at the Candidates 2014, and started coaching Fabiano Caruana in 2015.  Coaching Caruana is now Kasimdzhanov’s main occupation. Kasimdzhanov is married with 2 children; they live in Germany, in a small rural area not far from Bonn, the former capital of Germany.