Nicolas Checa

Nicolas de T. Checa (born December 19, 2001) is an American Chess Grandmaster. A chess prodigy, he began playing competitive chess at age 7. He is the recipient of the 2020 and 2021 Samford Fellowships, an award granted to the top American chess players under 25 years old.[1] He is the 2021 Connecticut State Champion and an undergraduate student at Yale University.

Nicolas Checa
CountryUnited States
Born (2001-12-19) December 19, 2001
New York
TitleGrandmaster (2019)
FIDE rating2531 (December 2021)
Peak rating2527 (August 2019)

Checa is the youngest Annual New York State Champion since the official championship started in 1878, a record that he achieved as an 11-year old in 2013 and still holds.[2]

Checa fulfilled all the FIDE Grandmaster title requirements in November 2018 at age 16.[3] His Grandmaster Title was formally approved by FIDE in March of 2019 in Astana, Kazakhstan. He became a FIDE Master in 2015 and an International Master in 2016.[4]

In 2017 he placed first (tiebreaks) in the VI SuperNationals High School (K-12) Blitz Championship held in Nashville, becoming the national scholastic blitz champion as a freshman.[5]

In 2017, he also became the Marshall Chess Club champion after beating Grandmaster Sergei Azarov in a blitz match playoff.[6]

In 2017 he was part of the US National Team in the Match of the Millenials when the top 5 junior players in the US faced the top 5 juniors from the rest of the world.[7]

In the summer of 2018, Checa was a United States Senate Page, working as a Senate floor assistant and residing in Webster Hall, the official residence for US Senate Pages.

In November 2018, Checa earned his final GM norm by earning clear first place in the Charlotte Chess Center's Fall 2018 GM Norm Invitational held in Charlotte, North Carolina with an undefeated score of 6.5/9. [8]

In July 2019 he tied for first (tiebreaks equal second) in the US Junior Invitational Championship with the only undefeated score of 7/9.[9]

Checa also placed first in the 2019 National High School Championship (K-12) (first on tiebreaks), the highest national scholastic title in the US in classical chess time controls.[10] As a high school junior, he placed first in the national championship held in Chicago by the US Chess Federation.

In 2019 he defeated Fabiano Caruana in the Professional Chess League Group Stage.[11]

In 2020, Checa won the Denker Tournament of High School Champions named after Arnold Denker.[12]


References
  1. "Frank P. Samford, Jr. Chess Fellowship – the U.S. Chess Trust".
  2. Lamagna, Maria (14 September 2013). "It's Checkmate, and then Back to School for 11-Year-Old State Champ". Wall Street Journal.
  3. "Title Application - Nicolas Checa" (PDF). FIDE. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  4. "Checa, Nicolas".
  5. "2017 snvi".
  6. "The Marshall Chess Club".
  7. https://www.uschesschamps.com/information/match-millennials
  8. "CCCSA GM/IM Norm Invitational - Holiday 2021 GM/IM Norm Invitational Chess Tournament".
  9. https://www.uschesschamps.com/2019-us-junior-championship/pairings-results
  10. "Checa, Peng, and Stevens win 2019 NHS Championship". 18 March 2019.
  11. "Fabiano Caruana vs Nicolas Checa (2019)".
  12. https://www.denkerchess.com/wp-content/uploads/2020-Denker-Standings.pdf
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