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.

Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen (born 30 November 1990) is a Norwegian chess Grandmaster and chess prodigy who is currently the number-one ranked player in the world. In January 2010 he became the seventh player in history to be ranked number one in the world on the official FIDE rating list. His peak rating is 2835, the second highest in history, after Garry Kasparov.

On 26 April 2004 Carlsen became a Grandmaster at the age of &1000000000000001300000013 years, &10000000000000148000000148 days, making him the third-youngest Grandmaster in history. On 1 January 2010 the new FIDE rating list was published, and at the age of &1000000000000001900000019 years, &1000000000000003200000032 days, he became the youngest chess player in history to be ranked world number one, breaking the record previously held by Vladimir Kramnik. Carlsen was also the 2009 World blitz chess champion.

His performance at the September–October 2009 Nanjing Pearl Spring tournament has been described as one of the greatest in history and lifted him to an Elo rating of 2801, making him the fifth player to achieve a rating over 2800 – and aged 18 years 10 months at the time, by far the youngest to do so.

Boris Franz Becker (born 22 November 1967) is a former World No. 1 professional tennis player from Germany. He is a six-time Grand Slam singles champion, an Olympic gold medalist, and the youngest-ever winner of the men's singles title at Wimbledon at the age of 17. Becker also won five major indoor championships titles including three ATP Masters World Tour Finals (played eight finals, second all-time to Ivan Lendl, who played nine) and one WCT Finals and one Grand Slam Cup. He also won five Masters 1000 series titles and eight Championship Series titles. Tennis Magazine put Becker in 18th place on its list of the 40 greatest tennis players from 1965 to 2005.

Becker was born in Leimen, West Germany, the only son of Elvira (née Pisch), who was raised in Czechoslovakia. His parents were Catholic, and part of his mother's family were Jewish. His father Karl-Heinz, an architect, founded the tennis centre (Tennis-Club Blau-Weiß 1964 Leimen e. V.) in Leimen, where Becker learned the game.

Becker turned professional in 1984, under the guidance of Romanian-born coach, Günther Bosch, and with Ion Ţiriac as manager and won his first professional doubles title that year in Munich. As a West German teenager, Becker won his first top-level singles title in June 1985 at Queen's Club and two weeks later on 7 July, became the first unseeded player and the first German to win the Wimbledon singles title, defeating Kevin Curren in four sets. At the time, he was the youngest ever male Grand Slam singles champion at &1000000000000001700000017 years, &10000000000000227000000227 days (a record later broken by Michael Chang in 1989, who won the French Open when he was &1000000000000001700000017 years, &10000000000000110000000110 days). Two months after his triumph, Becker became the youngest winner of the Cincinnati Open.

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)).

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.