Andrew Tang

For the Singaporean racing driver, see Andrew Tang (racing driver).

Andrew Tang
Andrew Tang at Hart House, 2023.
Country	United States
Born	(1999-11-29) November 29, 1999 (age 25) Naperville, Illinois
Title	Grandmaster (2018)
FIDE rating	2529 (January 2025)
Peak rating	2540 (December 2022)
Twitch information
Channel	penguingm1
Years active	2013–present
Followers	58,200
YouTube information
Channel	penguingm1
Years active	2014–present
Genre	Online chess
Subscribers	32,200[1]
Total views	4 million[1]
Last updated: March 8, 2024

Andrew Tang (born November 29, 1999) is an American chess grandmaster. He is also a popular streamer, known online for his speed chess skills especially in bullet (one minute), hyperbullet (30 seconds), and ultrabullet (15 seconds) time controls as well as for playing speed chess blindfolded.^[2][3]

Chess career

Tang began playing chess in preschool. He was instructed by John Bartholomew as he was growing up.^[4] He earned the title of International Master in 2014 by winning the North American Junior Chess Championship.^[5][6]

Tang earned the title of Grandmaster in November 2017, when he achieved his final norm and an Elo rating over 2500, both required for the title, in the Fall 2017 CCCSA GM Norm Invitational tournament, held in Charlotte, North Carolina.^[7] FIDE awarded him the title in April 2018.^[8]

In December 2018, he participated in the World Rapid Chess Championship in Saint Petersburg. Initially seeded 190th, Tang achieved a good result, scoring 8.5 points out of 15 rounds, and placing 59th.^[9] In the tournament, he also played his first live game against world champion Magnus Carlsen.^[10]

In the 2019 U.S. Junior Championship, Tang placed 4th out of 10 with 5/9.^[11][12]

In January 2020, Tang tied for second place with a score of 6.5/9 in the Charlotte Open, held in Charlotte, North Carolina, tying with GM Cemil Can Ali Marandi, GM Akshat Chandra, GM Ulvi Bajarani, and IM Aaron Grabinsky.^[13] On October 1, 2020, Tang signed with the esports organization Cloud9 using the online ID penguingm1.^[14]

Andrew Tang also competed in the 2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented By SIG hosted by chess.com. There he competed against GMs Hikaru Nakamura, Nihal Sarin, Daniel Naroditsky and Alireza Firouzja, among others. He finished in 2nd place, losing 5–11 to Firouzja in the final.^[15] He again participated in the competition's following-year edition, and again finished in 2nd place, losing 11–8 to Nakamura in the Grand Final.

Andrew Tang won the 2023 US Open. He and GM Alexey Sorokin both won their ninth round games to tie for first place, but Tang won the Armageddon playoff. ^[16] Tang was subsequently featured on the cover of the December 2023 issue of Chess Life.

In 2024, Tang was inducted into the Minnesota Chess Hall of Fame, by the Minnesota State Chess Association.^[17]

Tang streams chess live on Twitch, preferring fast bullet chess games of 15-, 30-, or 60-second chess with no increment. He has beaten the Lichess Stockfish engine successively from level 1 through 8 in ultrabullet time control.^[18] He has won the Lichess Titled Arena five times as of December 2021.^[19][20]

Personal life

Tang was born in Naperville, Illinois but his family moved to Minnesota when he was eight. He graduated from Wayzata High School in Plymouth, Minnesota,^[21] and attended Princeton University, where he majored in Operations Research and Financial Engineering.^[22]

After graduating, he was hired as a quantitative trader by SIG.^[23]

References

1. "About penguingm1". YouTube.
2. "Twitch". Twitch.tv.
3. "GM Andrew Tang is playing BLINDFOLDED Ultrabullet". Twitter.com. Retrieved June 4, 2022.
4. "Perpetual Chess Podcast Ep. 164". Omny.fm. Archived from the original on February 12, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
5. Eric D. Johnson (May 2015). "Wayzata Freshman Becomes International Chess Champion". Plymouth Magazine. Minneapolis: Tiger Oak Media. Retrieved August 4, 2020.
6. "Andrew Tang". Uschesschamps.com. Saint Louis Chess Club. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
7. "Fall 2017 CCCSA GM Norm Invitational". Fide.com. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
8. "List of titles approved by the 2018 1st quarter PB in Minsk, Belarus". Old.fide.com. April 9, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
9. "King Salman World Rapid Championship 2018". Chess-results.com. Retrieved November 10, 2019.
10. Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: penguin vs drunkenstein | World Rapid Championship (2018) – via YouTube.
11. "MN teen to play in U.S. Junior Chess Nationals". Kare11.com. July 10, 2019. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
12. "2019 U.S. Junior Championship". Uschesschamps.com. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
13. "Charlotte Open - Chess Tournament". Chessstream.com.
14. "Cloud9 Enters The Chess World and Welcomes penguingm1". Cloud9.gg. October 2020. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
15. "2021 Bullet Chess Championship Presented by SIG". Chess.com. April 9, 2021.
16. "Full Report: Tang, Sorokin Win U.S. Open". August 6, 2023.
17. Minnesota Chess Hall of Fame Retrieved on March 8, 2024.
18. penguingm1 vs stockfish levels 1-8 ultrabullet. – via YouTube.
19. "Andrew Tang wins Titled Arena". Lichess.org. July 19, 2021. Retrieved July 22, 2021.
20. "Titled Arena December '22: Standard 1+0 rated #dec22lta". lichess.org. December 24, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
21. "STRIB: Andrew Tang of Wayzata High School becomes one of nation's few chess grandmasters". Wayzata.com. Archived from the original on February 20, 2018. Retrieved February 19, 2018.
22. "PRINCETON STUDENTS, MAXIMUM SECURITY INMATES TO SQUARE OFF IN CHESS COMPETITION" (PDF) (Press release). Trenton, NJ: New Jersey Department of Corrections. November 14, 2019. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
23. "SIG x Chess.com". sig.com. Retrieved April 10, 2024.

External links

• Andrew Tang rating card at FIDE
• Andrew Tang player profile and games at Chessgames.com
• Andrew Tang player profile at Chess.com
• Andrew Tang (penguingim1) member profile at Lichess
• Andrew Tang (C9C9C9C9C9) member profile at Lichess
• Andrew Tang (CleverTacticButFail) member profile at Lichess
• Andrew Tang Archived 2016-08-02 at the Wayback Machine chess games and profile at Chess-DB.com
• Andrew Tang on Twitch