Carissa Yip

Carissa Yip has been on fire the past year. A child prodigy, Yip defeated her first grandmaster at the age of 10 and became a national master at 11. She reached 2400 FIDE at the age of 15 but then hit a plateau that stretched almost seven years from the fall of 2019 to the summer of 2025 during which her rating never went over the low 2430s. That all ended starting with her performance at the 2024 Chess Olympiad in Budapest where she won the individual gold medal and the team bronze medal playing on board 2 for the United States.

Since then, Yip has been on a tear. She won the 2024 U.S. Women’s Championship and repeated this feat in 2025. Sandwiched between these victories was her triumph in the 2025 Cairns Cup against some of best female chess players in the world. Most recently Carissa had another exceptional performance this past January, scoring 7 from 13 in the Challengers section of Tata Steel. She did this despite being the fourth lowest rated player going into the competition. 

Currently rated 2486 FIDE (which counts her performance in Tata Steel), Carissa is the presently the 15th highest rated woman in the world. She has two norms for the grandmaster title and only needs one more (and to raise her rating to 2500) for the title. In so doing she would become only the second American female to earn this title while representing the United States.

One title Yip has yet to win is that of the American Cup champion. The event has been held since 2022, but Carissa only played in 2025 due to her studies at Stanford. Last year she was knocked out by Tatev Abrahmyan and Nazi Paikadze.  It is a safe bet Carissa will be strongly motivated to do better this year.