Carissa Yip

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 FIDE 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 a great 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.

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.

No one has ever repeated as Cairns Cup Champion. Will Carissa be the first to do so?

Carissa Yip is currently the 15th highest rated woman in the world.