2025 Samford Fellowship Winners Announced

The winners of the 39th annual Frank P. Samford Jr. Chess Fellowship are:

Grandmasters Abhimanyu Mishra, of Englishtown, New Jersey; Andy Woodward, of McKinney, Texas; Andrew Hong, of Saratoga, California, and Brewington Hardaway, of New York City; International Masters Dimitar Mardov, of Lake Zurich, Illinois; Carissa Yip, of St. Louis, and Alice Lee, of North Oaks, Minnesota; Woman Grandmaster Zoey Tang of Portland, Oregon, and National Master Megan Paragua, of New York City.

The Samford is the most important chess fellowship in the United States, having awarded more than $2.5 million to promising young chessplayers since 1987.

The total value of the Fellowships has been increased several times over the years and is now $70,000 annually. Mishra will receive $15,000; Yip, $12,000; Woodward, $10,000; Hong, $8,000, and Hardaway, Lee, Mardov, Paragua, and Tang $5,000 each. Fellows are eligible to receive up to a maximum of $84,000 in total support. The winners’ terms began June 1, 2025.

The nine recipients of 2025 Samford Fellowship awards, in the order they are introduced in the text: Mishra (c SLCC), Woodward (c Lennart Ootes), Hong, Hardaway (c US Chess), Mardov (c Jacob Plotnick), Yip (c SLCC), Lee (c SLCC), Tang (c US Chess), and Paragua (c Renaissance Knights).

Samford Winners since 2019:

2019 Awonder Liang
2019 Samuel Sevian
2019 Christopher Yoo
2020 Nicholas Checa
2020 Awonder Liang
2020 Carissa Yip
2020 Christopher Yoo
2021 Praveen Balakrishnan
2021 Akshat Chandra
2021 Nicholas Checa
2021 Abhimanyu Mishra
2021 Hans Niemann
2021 Carissa Yip
2021 Christopher Yoo
2022 Alice Lee
2022 Abhimanyu Mishra
2022 Hans Niemann
2022 Carissa Yip
2022 Christopher Yoo
2023 Alice Lee
2023 Jason Liang
2023 Abhimanyu Mishra
2023 Hans Niemann
2023 Carissa Yip
2023 Christopher Yoo
2023 Jennifer Yu
2024 Abhimanyu Mishra
2024 Andy Woodward
2024 Christopher Yoo
2024 Andrew Hong
2024 Bryce Tiglon
2024 Carissa Yip
2024 Alice Lee
2024 Gulruhbegim Tohirjonova
2025 Abhimanyu Mishra
2025 Andy Woodward
2025 Andrew Hong
2025 Brewington Hardaway
2025 Dimitar Mardov
2025 Carissa Yip
2025 Alice Lee
2025 Zoey Tang
2025 Megan Paragua