Chess Grandmaster Nationalities Quiz

Answer: Norway

Carlsen is a five-time Chess World Champion and was the highest ranked player in the history of the game in 2024. He voluntarily gave up his title in 2023, citing a lack of desire to defend the game in classical chess and aimed to become the first player to surpass the 2900 ELO mark. Carlsen memorized all the countries and their capitals as a toddler and his memory is considered one of his greatest assets.

Answer: India

Anand is a five-time World Chess Champion and the highest rated player in India's history as of 2024. He was defeated by Magnus Carlsen in 2013 to lose the World Chess Championship, and failed to win it back in a rematch the following year. Anand is one of very few players to exceed the 2800 ELO mark.

Answer: United States

The 11th World Chess Champion was a renowned prodigy from an early age but his later career was overshadowed by eccentricities and his subsequent defection from the United States. He died in Iceland in 2008, after he had been living there after he received Icelandic citizenship in 2004.

He believed that the extensive study of the game would lead to "draw death" and invented Fischer Random Chess as a countermeasure, a chess variant that is still popular to this day.

Answer: Hungary

The Hungarian grandmaster was a chess prodigy from an early age, as she was trained extensively in the game alongside her sisters by her father. She is widely regarded as the best female player of all time, and achieved her grandmaster title at the age of 15, a then-record.

She notably refused to participate in any female-only tournaments, due to her belief that men did not hold any inherent advantage at the game and high level tournaments should not be segregated by gender.

Answer: Russia

World Champion Karpov represented the then-Soviet Union, where he was born in several World Chess Championship matches, most notably against his compatriot and fellow grandmaster Garry Kasparov. After a 48-game match in 1984 that failed to determine a winner between the two, FIDE terminated the match citing the players' health.

Answer: Armenia

The chess prodigy was born in Armenian SSR in the Soviet Union and gained the grandmaster title at the age of 17 years old. His peak rating of 2830 is one of the highest in the history of the game, and he was ranked as the #2 player in the world in 2012.

He transferred to the United States Chess federation in 2021, citing a lack of governmental support for the game in Armenia as his reason.

Answer: Cuba

The third World Chess Champion was an endgame specialist before the computer age solved most endgame chess puzzles with ease. His chess book "Chess Fundamentals" was regarded by many grandmasters as one of the best chess books ever written. Capablanca died in New York City in 1942.

Answer: Bulgaria

The 2005 World Champion's peak rating of 2816 is one of the highest ever recorded and he was ranked World #1 in 2006. His title following his dominant victory in the 2005 world championship in a unique round robin format was short lived, as he lost it the following year to Vladimir Kramnik.

Answer: Germany

Lasker was regarded as one of the most dominant chess players of his era, managing to hold on to the World Championship for 27 years. He was also a world-class bridge player and held a PhD in mathematics. He was criticized for charging exorbitant appearance fees to play the game, as he was wary of dying in poverty like many of the chess greats of his generation.

Answer: Netherlands

The fifth World Chess Champion won the title from Alexander Alekhine in 1935, but lost it back to him two years later. He won every Dutch championship that he played in from 1921 to 1952. He earned a PhD in mathematics and also later became the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) from 1970 to 1978.