Gregory Kaidanov

Grandmaster Gregory Kaidanov has played an important role in American chess for over three decades. Since arriving in the United States in the early 1990s from the Soviet Union, Kaidanov has made his mark as a player, teacher and coach. He has won all the major open tournaments in the United States and took first place in the 2001 Aeroflot Open in Moscow ahead of 81 other Grandmasters.

Kaidanov was a mainstay of US national teams in the 1990s and early 2000s. During this time, he played on five Olympiad teams and twice in the World Team Championship, winning team gold once, team silver twice and team bronze twice. More recently, Kaidanov has been a fixture on the United States teams which have dominated the World Senior Team Championship the past decade.

The winner of the 2021 U.S. Senior Championship, Kaidanov was rated number 16 in the world in 1994 and achieved his peak FIDE rating of 2646 in 2002. The coach of the 2008 bronze-meal winning U.S. Women’s Olympiad team, Kaidanov has taught a veritable Who’s Who of American chess including Fabiano Caruana, Sam Shankland, Ray Robson and Daniel Naroditsky.

Gregory Kaidanov was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2013.