Sam Shankland

Grandmaster Sam Shankland of Pleasant Hill, California, is an inspiration to those who got a late start in chess. Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura learned the rules before the age of 5 and became Grandmasters in their early teens. This was not the case for Shankland who was still rated under 1400 at the age of 12. Nonetheless, this didn’t prevent him from going on to become an elite player.

Shankland first came to international attention when he tied for first in the World under 18 Championship in 2008. Many players would have pursued the path of becoming full-time chess professionals following this performance, but not Sam. Instead he went to Brandeis University graduating in 2014 with a degree in economics. During his time in college Shankland continued to make progress at chess, but no one could predict the improvement he would make in his twenties.

Sam made a sensational debut playing for the U.S. Olympiad team in 2014 when he won an individual gold medal as a reserve player, scoring 9 points out of 10 games for a performance rating of 2829. He continued to perform at a high level in subsequent Olympiads helping the U.S. team win gold in 2016 and silver in 2018.

Shankland has won a number of important competitions in his career including the 2021 Prague Masters with a performance rating over 2900. The same year he also reached the quarterfinals of the FIDE World Cup, but unquestionably his best result was winning the 2018 U.S. Championship against a field which included three players rated in the top ten in the world.

The author of a number of excellent books, including the critically acclaimed Theoretical Rook Endgames, Shankland runs the Killer Chess Training online instructional site along with his coach Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard.

Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar both lost the last tournament they played before retiring. Who defeated them? Sam Shankland.