Sam Shankland is a grandmaster from Walnut Creek, California. He tied for first in the 2008 World under-18 championship (thereby gaining his IM title) and was California state champion in both 2008 and 2009. He won the USA Junior Championship (2010) from Ray Robson and Parker Bi Guang Zhao on tiebreak. He was awarded the grandmaster title after earning his third GM norm at the Berkeley International (2011).
Qualifying for the World Cup (2011) through Zonal 2.1, Shankland beat Hungarian super-GM Peter Leko in the major upset of the first round, but fell in the second round to Indian GM and 2008 World Junior Champion Abhijeet Gupta. The US Championship (Group B play-off) (2011) took him as far as the US Championship (Knock-out) (2011) stage, before Gata Kamsky eliminated him. He qualified for his second World Cup, to be held in 2015, when he was runner-up on tiebreak behind Julio Ernesto Granda Zuniga at the 9th American Continental Championship held in October 2014.
Playing Board 5 reserve for the USA at the Tromso Olympiad (2014), Shankland scored a dominant 9/10 to win individual gold for board 5, with a TPR of 2831.
At the World Cup (2015), Shankland defeated Ivan Popov in the first round, but lost to compatriot Hikaru Nakamura in the second round rapid game tiebreaker to exit the tournament.
Shankland came in clear first at the US Championship (2018). His final game of the championship brought his rating over 2700 for the first time. He followed up with first at the Capablanca Memorial (Elite) (2018), a point and a half clear of outright second placed Aleksey Dreev. That brought his live rating to 2717.2 and his world rank to No. 30.
Shankland's good form continued in the American Continental (2018) which he won outright with 9/11, boosting his live rating to 2727.2 and live ranking to #27 in the world. His result in the American Continental qualified him to compete in the World Cup (2019). There he lost in the first round blitz tiebreaks to Eltaj Safarli.
In June 2021, he won the Prague Masters with 5.5/7 and a performance rating over 2900, the best result in the tournament's history. He entered the FIDE World Cup (2021) as the 31st seed, with a rating of 2691. After receiving a bye in the first round, he defeated in succession Baadur Jobava, Alexander Areshchenko, Rinat Jumabayev, and Peter Svidler. In the quarterfinals he lost on tiebreaks to former world championship challenger Sergey Karjakin, 4–2. His performance earned him a spot in the 2022 FIDE Grand Prix.
Shankland maintains a website at www.samshankland.com. He is one of the three owners of Killer Chess Training Academy. He has also written the books "Small Steps to Giant Improvement: Master Pawn Play in Chess" and "Small Steps 2 Success: Mastering Passed Pawn Play." He is a prolific author at the online platform Chessable.com.
(1) https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast... (audio podcast with Ben Johnson from January, 2017), (2) Wikipedia article: Samuel Shankland
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