The Field

Over the past 10 years, Vidit Gujrathi has gone from a fresh, 18 year old GM to one of the best players from India in chess history. He rose through the ranks along with illustrious contemporaries such as S.P. Sethuraman and S.L. Narayanan, and now he finds himself competing with the next generation of rising stars. The Fall Classic marks his first appearance at a major event here at the Saint Louis Chess Club.

Illya Nyzhnyk began playing chess at age 5, and hasn’t stopped since. As a talented junior, he won numerous youth events and soared to the Grandmaster title in 2011. Since then, Nyzhnyk helped lead an extremely dominant collegiate team at Webster University. During his tenure, the team won 5 consecutive PanAm InterCollegiate Chess Championships and 3 straight Final Four Championships. Outside of collegiate chess, Nyzhnyk has won the U.S. Open, National Open, and 4 World Opens. Recently, he has made a push towards the 2700 barrier, peaking at a 2699 live FIDE rating.

After becoming a GM at age 15, Nijat Abasov made his presence known on the world stage by winning the World U18 Blitz Championship, and placing 2nd in the classical portion of the U18 Championship. He has competed at the highest level of chess, performing well at both the 2019 FIDE World Cup and 2019 FIDE Grand Swiss. In the latter tournament, he placed 15th overall, ahead of chess legends such as Viswanathan Anand and Boris Gelfand. The Fall Chess Classic marks his first appearance in Saint Louis.

Aram started playing chess when he was 6 years old and earned his Grandmaster title at the age of 17. He has achieved much during his career, winning the Armenian Youth Championships five times, becoming U12 World Chess Champion in 2012, earning a bronze medal in European U14 Championship in 2015, and another bronze medal at the U16 Olympiad in 2016. Aram’s other accolades include 3rd prize for the first and second rounds of the European Junior Grand Prix in 2017 and being named best junior player U18 for his efforts at the 2018 European Individual Championship.

Originally from Greece, Nikolas started playing chess at the age of seven. Soon after his parents showed him how to move the pieces, he became enchanted by the complexity and elegance of the game and has been competing ever since. Nikolas recently gained his grandmaster title and is one of the top ranked Greek players. This year he won a silver medal in the Chess Olympiad and is a part of the SLU Chess team. Nikolas also enjoys playing speed chess online and reached #4 on the Chess.com World Blitz Rankings, scoring multiple victories against players such as Magnus Carlsen in one-minute chess and Hikaru Nakamura in three-minute chess.

Christopher is a 15-year old Korean-American Grandmaster. He is the youngest ever to beat a FIDE-rated 2700+ "Super GM" and the youngest ever California State Champion.  He recently qualified for the 2023 FIDE World Cup by finishing second at the 2022 American Continental Championship.  In 2021, he placed 2nd to GM Praggnanandhaa in the finals of the Julius Baer Challengers Chess Tour, which featured many of the strongest juniors in the world.  Christopher is also an award-winning composer of endgame studies and earned a bronze medal in the 2019 FIDE World Cup in Composing.

Denis is a Bosnian grandmaster who currently lives in Sarajevo. Denis’s father taught him to play chess when he was 5 years old, and Denis played his first tournament four years later. In 2012, he became the European Rapid and Blitz champion in the U-16 category. From 2014 till 2018, he attended the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) where he received a full scholarship and earned a bachelor’s degree in finance. In the summer of 2017, he won 2 strong international tournaments in a row: the Bosna Open in June, followed by the Paracin Open in July. He has played in the last 4 Olympiads for his country, making his final GM norm at the Istanbul Olympiad in 2012 and playing on the first board in Batumi in 2018. He is currently a professional chess player and coach.

Brandon Jacobson is an American chess Grandmaster. He became a FIDE Master in 2017, an International Master in 2018, and was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2020. He is also an undergraduate student of Columbia University, majoring in economics.

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. Over the past few years, Cristian has worked to build an elite collegiate team as the head chess coach at the University of Mizzou. He is a regular at the Saint Louis Chess Club, and frequently commentates over top-level events.