Jeffery Xiong has packed an impressive collection of records, titles, and quirky trivia into a career that began before most kids finish elementary school. Here’s a collection of the best — every one checked against reliable sources, with the volatile “current” numbers left out in favor of stable, dated facts.
The essentials
- Full name: Jeffery Xiong.
- Born: 30 October 2000, in Plano, Texas, United States.
- Title: Grandmaster (GM), earned in September 2015 at age 14.
- Peak classical rating: 2712 (November 2019).
- Peak world ranking: No. 30 (August 2021).
The milestones
- World Under-10 Champion (2010): Xiong won a world youth title at just nine years old — an early flag that Texas had a special talent on its hands.
- Grandmaster at 14 (2015): he earned chess’s highest title as a young teenager, ranking among the youngest Americans ever to do so.
- World Junior Champion (2016): at age 15 he won the World Junior Championship in Bhubaneswar, India, with a dominant 10.5/13 — a point clear of future elite GM Vladislav Artemiev, and the first American to win the title in nearly two decades.
- U.S. Junior Champion (2016): he added the national junior crown the same year.
A giant-killer at the World Cup
One of Xiong’s most eye-catching runs came at the 2019 FIDE World Cup. Seeded a modest 31st in the 128-player knockout, he upset two elite grandmasters — Anish Giri and Jan-Krzysztof Duda — to reach the quarterfinals as the last American standing. Beating top-ten opposition in a high-pressure knockout, as a teenager, is exactly the sort of result that announces a player has arrived.
He’s a bughouse world champion, too
Here’s a fun one. Xiong isn’t only a classical star — he’s an elite bughouse player, the frantic four-player variant where captured pieces get passed to your partner to drop back on the board. Teamed with fellow American grandmaster Awonder Liang, Xiong won the Bughouse World Championship in 2021 and 2022. It’s a reminder that behind the calm, mature classical player is someone who genuinely loves the game in all its forms.
Praised by the greats
Xiong’s style has drawn compliments from two of the biggest names in chess:
- Garry Kasparov called his chess “very solid… very mature.”
- Yasser Seirawan, a four-time U.S. Champion, highlighted his “well-roundedness,” noting that “he enjoys playing long games” and “keeps his nerves in double-edged positions.”
When Kasparov and Seirawan independently reach for words like “solid,” “mature,” and “well-rounded,” you get a very clear picture of the player. We dig into what those quotes mean over the board in his playing style.
A Saint Louis regular
Xiong is a fixture of the Saint Louis chess scene, the hub of elite American chess. He won the 7th Saint Louis GM Invitational in 2015 and the Saint Louis Spring Classic in both 2018 and 2019 (with a super-GM performance rating around 2819 in 2018), and he’s a regular in the U.S. Championship, where he finished runner-up in 2020 (8.5/11). If there’s a strong tournament in Saint Louis, there’s a good chance Xiong is in the field.
Part of America’s young generation
Xiong isn’t a lone wonder — he’s one of the standard-bearers of an extraordinary wave of young American talent, alongside fellow teenage-grandmaster peers like Sam Sevian. This generation of Americans came up largely through the well-funded Saint Louis chess ecosystem and pushed the United States back toward the front of world team chess. Xiong, home-schooled and competing internationally from a young age, is one of its brightest examples.
Career timeline at a glance
A quick, dated rundown of the milestones above, in order:
- 2000: born in Plano, Texas (30 October).
- 2010: wins the World Under-10 Championship at age nine.
- 2015: earns the grandmaster title at 14; wins the 7th Saint Louis GM Invitational.
- 2016: wins the World Junior Championship (10.5/13) and the U.S. Junior Championship at age 15.
- 2018: wins the Saint Louis Spring Classic and ties for first at the U.S. Masters.
- 2019: peaks at 2712 and reaches the FIDE World Cup quarterfinals, beating Giri and Duda.
- 2020–2021: finishes U.S. Championship runner-up (2020) and reaches world No. 30 (August 2021).
- 2021–2022: wins back-to-back Bughouse World Championships with Awonder Liang.
It’s a remarkable list for a player still in his twenties. For the numbers behind it, see his rating history.
FAQ
What records does Jeffery Xiong hold? Among his highlights: World Under-10 champion (2010), grandmaster at 14 (2015), 2016 World Junior Champion, 2016 U.S. Junior Champion, and two-time Bughouse World Champion (2021, 2022).
Is Jeffery Xiong a bughouse champion? Yes — with partner Awonder Liang he won the Bughouse World Championship in both 2021 and 2022.
How good is Jeffery Xiong? He reached a classical FIDE peak of 2712 (2019) and a career-high world ranking of No. 30 (2021), and he beat elite grandmasters Giri and Duda at the 2019 World Cup. He’s one of the strongest juniors the United States has ever produced.
Where is Jeffery Xiong from? He was born in Plano, Texas, in 2000, and became a fixture of the Saint Louis chess scene.
Keep exploring
Back to the Jeffery Xiong profile · his best games · his rating history · his playing style · or browse all chess players.
Written and fact-checked by the Chess Lab Academy Editorial Team · Facts verified against Wikipedia, his FIDE profile, and Chess.com, as of July 2026 · Last verified 2026-07-10 · How we verify content.