GM Joshua Sheng

I'm Joshua Sheng, a 24-year-old Grandmaster from Santa Monica, California who graduated from UC Berkeley in Spring of 2021. My FIDE peak was 2501 and my USCF peak was 2614.

I won the National under 20 championship in 2016 and placed second in the Denker high school championship in 2018. I have won quite a few strong events, such as the 2018 Southern California state championship. I finished my GM title in Fall of 2021.

I have been a passionate coach since 2016, and I completed the FIDE Trainer certification in 2024. In addition to private coaching, which I have been doing for a non-negligible amount of time, I have taught at a number of chess camps including one I co-founded, which can be further explored at www.sdsurferschesscamp.com/.

I participate in the PRO chess league as a player for the San Diego Surfers, and commentate quite frequently when I am not playing. I have a lot of experience commentating casually and run a tiny Twitch channel at twitch.tv/jjosu1.

My strengths in this game are probably my intuition, calculation, and the opening. While it is not hard to see that my experience pales in comparison to that of many older IMs and GMs, I believe that the way in which I look at the game is relatively unique and my age allows me to better connect with a lot of the modern chess audience.

The way I teach chess focuses largely on the needs of the student and a fundamental understanding of the reasoning behind moves and plans.