13 Famous Chess players in the World

In this article, we are going to see the most famous chess players in the world. Many of you already know them. We will sort them according to their rating and status. Some of the players are living and some of the players already died. Few players are not top players but they helped to innovate some creations in chess e.g. Chessbase, famous streamers, etc. You will defiantly enjoy this article.

13 Most Famous Chess Players in the World

1-Magnus Carlsen

He is a world champion and super-genius chess player. Currently, he is the highest-rated chess player in the world. besides this, he has also his own company Play Magnus under which there are many brands such as Play Magnus, Magnus Trainer, New In Chess, Ichess, Chessable, Chess24, GingerGM, Gambit Chess, etc.

Magnus becomes world champion in 2013 defeating former world champion Vishy Anand. After that, he defeated Sergey Karjakin, and Caruana Fabiano. He will play his next world championship in December 2021 in Dubai.

2- Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov is born in the Soviet Union and currently staying in the USA. He also holds a Croatian Residency. He becomes the world champion by defeating Anatoly Karpov. In 2021, he launched his own website www.kasparovchess.com to compete with chess.com and lichess.org.

Kasparov is also a very famous author. His series on my great predecessors and Garry Kasparov on Garry Kasparov become very famous.

3- Bobby Fischer

When you start playing chess, someone tells you about Fischer. Robert James Fischer was a former world champion. He defeated Boris Spassky with various controversies. You can read his controversies here. Fischer’s playing style was very unique and attacking.

GM Nigel Short claimed that he has played with Bobby Fischer in an online chess match on the ICC chess website.  I will recommend you watch Pawn Sacrifice to get a better understanding of Bobby’s life.

4- Alireza Firouzja

Alireza Firouzja was born in Iran in 2003. Currently, he is staying in France due to his major controversy against the Iranian government. Many people say that Alireza is the future world champion. His growth in the last 2 yrs is phenomenal and we will hope he will cross the 2800 rating barrier in the coming years.

5- Vishy Anand

Who doesn’t know Vishy? Grandmaster Viswanathan Anand is from India. He won the world chess championship 5 times. Vishy is also called Madras Tiger. Indian chess is in boom only due to Vishy Anand.

Recently Zerodha’s CEO and billionaire Nikhil Kamath used Engine against Vishy Anand. Vishy was so humble and politely responded. You can read his tweet below.

6- Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru Nakamura is a super grandmaster and a very famous twitch streamer from the USA. Currently, He is the most famous chess streamer in the world. Because of him, thousands of chess players started playing chess.

His online calculations skills are exceptionally well. If you didn’t know him, You can follow him on twitch.

7- Ian Neponmiatchchi

Ian Neponmiatchchi is from Russia and recently he won the Candidates tournament in 2021 and become a challenger for the world championship match in 2021. He will play against Magnus Carlsen in December 2021 in Dubai.

Neponmiatchchi was a young prodigy and he is also a very humble person. He is showing steady growth. Many players are supporting Ian for the world championship.

8- Nihal Sarin

Nihal Sarin is the most famous prodigy in chess. Nihal was born in India and become a grandmaster in 2018. Currently, his rating is 2600 above. He will cross the 2800 rating in some years for sure.

Nihal won the Gold Medal as part of the Indian team in the 2020 FIDE Chess Olympiad held online.

9- Samay Raina

Samay Raina has changed the Indian chess in lockdown. Samay started chess streaming in march 2020 and in just 3-4 months he got a lot of opportunities and subscribers. He completely changed chess streaming in India. His streaming is not serious and mostly funny.

Samay currently has 680k+ subscribers and is the most famous chess youtube channel in India.

10- Fredric Fridel

Fredric is CEO of chessbase GMBH. Chessbase is the first revolutionary chess company that launched chess software in the world. Currently, ChessBase is the most famous chess company in the world in chess software. In the last 20 years, anyone is not able to create similar software.

All credit for ChessBase software goes to Fredrik Freidel.

11- Levy Rozman

Levy Rozman is International Master and Twitch Streamer. He is from the USA. On youtube, he has gained 1M + subscribers in 1 year. In the 1 year, he gained a lot of subscribers and a lot of twitch followers.

Levy is not a very strong chess player but he defiantly helped thousands of chess players to learn chess for free. Levy also started a new business in 2022 which is called Chessly. He already published 9 chess courses which are recorded by himself. You can read our review on Gotham Chess Courses Review.

12 – Thibault Duplasis

Thibault duplasis is founder of lichess.org. lichess is a completely non-profit organization that generates millions of daily visitors on its website. Lichess mainly become popular in 2020 due to the lockdown.

Thibault started lichess as a side project and somehow lichess become very popular. Currently, lichess is the 2nd most popular website after chess.com. Lichess is also an open-source project. It means you can use any code on lichess and use to build your own chess website. Many chess academies and software are built on lichess code.

13 – Antonio Radic

Antonio is a creation chess player. He runs a most subscribed chess youtube channel called Agadmator Chess Channel. Agadmator also gained a lot of subscribers in 2020.

Antonio is a very hard-working youtube. He publishes 1-2 videos on daily basis.

These are the 12 most popular chess players in the world. Although many players in the list are not super grandmasters or even grandmasters they have established their names in the chess world

Let’s see some FAQ

Where to find famous chess players’ posters?

You can find high-quality chess players’ photos on the Niki Riga website. Niki Riga is a famous chess photographer. Apart from that, you will find photos on top chess websites news.

Who was the famous chess player who recently died?

Recently Paul Benko died in 2020. Pal Benko was a very famous chess player from the soviet union.