Gata Kamsky

Gata Kamsky is a chess grandmaster born in 1974 in Novokuznetsk, Russia, who has represented the United States for most of his career and, since 2025, the French Chess Federation. He rose through Soviet youth chess, moved to the United States with his father in 1989, earned the grandmaster title in 1990 and won the first of his five United States championships in 1991. In 1994 and 1995 he won a string of Candidates matches, including one against Viswanathan Anand, and reached the 1996 FIDE World Championship match, which he lost to Anatoly Karpov. He then stepped away from professional chess for several years, graduated from Brooklyn College and from law school, and returned to top-level play in 2004. His later career includes winning the 2007 Chess World Cup, losing a 2009 Candidates match to Veselin Topalov, taking further national titles in 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014, and playing board one for the United States at the 2008 Chess Olympiad, where the team won bronze.