Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov (Russian: Кирса́н Никола́евич Илюмжи́нов) (born April 5, 1962) is a Kalmyk multi-millionaire businessman and politician. He was the President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010, and he has been the President of FIDE (or the "World Chess Federation"), the world's pre-eminent international chess organization, since 1995. He has also been in the forefront of promoting chess in schools in Russia and overseas. He is the founder of Novy Vzglyad Publishing House. In addition to his native Kalmyk, he is fluent in Russian, English, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian and Korean.

Ilyumzhinov was born in Elista. His parents, like other Kalmyks, were deported by Joseph Stalin in World War II, and he grew up in Elista after the Kalmyks were allowed to return following Stalin's death. From a young age he became interested in chess, and he won the Kalmykian national chess championship in 1976 at the age of 14. From 1979–80 Ilyumzhinov worked as a mechanic-fitter at the Zvezda plant in Elista. After two years in compulsory national service for the Soviet Army, he returned to the plant as a mechanic for a year, and then studied at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations in 1983–89. In 1989–90 he was sales manager of the Soviet-Japanese automobile company "Liko-Raduga" in Moscow, and in 1990–93 he was President of SAN Corporation in Moscow. Ilyumzhinov acquired his wealth with the emergence of the private sector which followed the collapse of the USSR. He now owns a private jet and six Rolls Royces; he has a black limousine in Moscow, but prefers his white one at home. Kirsan is married to Danara Ilyumzhinova (née Davashkina) and they have one son, David. Ilyumzhinov also has two brothers, Sanal and Vyacheslav.

Nigel David Short MBE (born 1 June 1965 in Leigh, Lancashire) is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 to July 1989. In 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess Championship in London. He has defeated 12 of the 19 officially recognised World Champions since 1886. Currently the second oldest player in the world top 100, Short is also a chess columnist, coach and commentator.

He grew up in Atherton, going to the St Philip's Primary School on Bolton Old Road. He studied at the independent Bolton School and Leigh College. He was a member both of Atherton Chess Club, which was founded by his father, David, and later of Bolton Chess Club, which had initially rejected him, aged seven, for being too young.

A chess prodigy, Short first attracted significant media attention, as a 10-year-old, by defeating Viktor Korchnoi in a simultaneous exhibition. In 1977 he became the youngest ever participant in the British Chess Championship by qualifying three days before his twelfth birthday. Two years later, at the British Championship in Chester 1979, the 14-year-old tied for first place with John Nunn and Robert Bellin, earning his first IM norm. He became (at the time) the youngest International Master in chess history, by scoring 8/15 in the Hastings Premier in 1979/80 and thus breaking Bobby Fischer's record of 1958. Participating in four World Junior Championships (1980–1983), Short achieved his best result during his first attempt in which he placed second to Garry Kasparov in 1980 at Dortmund. He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1984, aged nineteen—becoming the youngest grandmaster in the world at that time.

Andrew Paulson (born 1958, Illinois) is an American entrepreneur working in Russia. He is the son of noted American professor Ronald Paulson.

During his early years he pursued oncology and neurophysiology research at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Yale University and at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and he founded The New Theater Company where he produced and directed numerous plays.

He graduated with a BA in French Literature and Literary Criticism from Yale University in 1981, and attended the Yale School of Drama. From 1982-86 he lived in Berlin and Paris, writing; from 1987-93 he lived in Paris, London and Milan, shooting fashion and advertising photography; during this period he co-founded (with Gilles Dusein) the Paris conceptual photography gallery ‘Urbi et Orbi’, and co-founded (with Kurt Novack) a graphic design studio, ‘Pourriture Noble’. From 1993 until 1998, he developed several publishing projects in Moscow (Delovie Lyudi (Russian: Деловые люди) for the French Groupe Hersant, Ponedyelnik (Russian: Понедельник), an independent news/business weekly, and an entertainment listings bi-weekly Vechernyaya Moskva (Russian: Вечерняя Москва)).

Susan Polgar (born April 19, 1969, as Polgár Zsuzsanna and often known as Zsuzsa Polgár) is a Hungarian-American chess Grandmaster. She is an Olympic chess champion, a chess teacher, coach, writer and promoter and the head of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) at Texas Tech University as well as the coach for the 2011 National Championship college chess team. She is the oldest of the famous "Polgár sisters": Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit. Susan is perhaps most famous for being a child prodigy at chess, for being the first female to earn the Grandmaster title through tournament play, and for breaking a number of gender barriers in chess.

On the July 1984 FIDE Rating List, at the age of 15, she became the top ranked woman player in the world, and remained ranked in the top three for the next 23 years. She was also the first woman in history to break the gender barrier by qualifying for the 1986 "Men's" World Championship. She was the Women's World Chess Champion from 1996 to 1999. In October 2005 Polgar had an Elo rating of 2577, making her the second-ranked woman in the world at the time, after her sister Judit Polgár. Polgar went on to win ten Olympic medals (5 Gold, 4 Silver and 1 Bronze) and four Women's World Championships. She has not played in official competition since 2006.