Player Profile: Jacorey Bynum

Jacorey Bynum has picked up some new fans recently. But the 18-year-old national master from Lauderhill, Florida, has been a big name in state and scholastic chess for years.

In 2019, the town of Sunrise, Florida declared Sept. 28 “Jacorey Bynum Day” in recognition of the then-11-year-old Bynum’s accomplishments and commitments to service in his community.

In 2024, he was covered in The Chess Drum for breaking the 2200 national rating barrier.

Last year, he finished eighth in the K-12 Championship section of SuperNationals VIII, only a half-point behind the seven co-champions.

In July, he was awarded an $8,000 Maurice Ashley Fellowship in recognition of his continued excellence.

Bynum broke through to the next level of notoriety on Jan. 27 when he checkmated GM Magnus Carlsen online during Chess.com’s Titled Tuesday tournament.

The critical moment from Titled Tuesday. (Screenshot from X.com)

Bynum’s smooth queen sacrifice earned him a smile and laugh from Carlsen, the Agadmator treatment on YouTube, and, beyond the chess world, everything from a profile in The Times of India to a post on Worldstar Hip Hop’s socials.

Chess Life Online emailed Bynum to learn a little bit more about the rising talent’s recent success and what comes next. The below interview has been edited for clarity.

Chess Life Online (CLO): How old were you when you first started playing chess? What made you get interested in the game?

Jacorey Bynum (JB): I first learned about chess from a Mortal Kombat game when I was four years old. But I really started playing when I was nine. What made me interested was that I was winning a lot and my mentor at the time wanted to play in tournaments. I didn’t even know there were chess tournaments. I was already a competitive person, so chess tournaments were fun for me.

CLO: At what age did you become an NM? What was the hardest part of achieving that milestone, and what advice do you have to chess players climbing up the ranks?

JB: I became a national master when I was 16 years old. The hardest part of achieving the title is overthinking the ways you can get to NM. The advice that I would give is to just try to play your best chess no matter who you are playing.

CLO: Who were some of your first/favorite chess teachers/mentors? What did you learn from them?

JB: My first chess mentor was Mo Hylton. He was the one who got me into chess and chess tournaments. My first chess coach was FM Ramon Lorente (through the National Scholastic Chess Foundation). I was about 1400 or 1500 at the time.

Jacorey Bynum in Orlando for SuperNationals VIII. (Photo by Photography in Motion/US Chess)

CLO: You had a strong result at SuperNationals VIII, finishing eighth with 5½/7, only a half-point behind the seven co-champions. What was your favorite part of competing in that tournament? Do you have a favorite game?

JB: My favorite part of competing was the tough chess games I played. None of them were easy, and it was challenging. I would say my favorite was against IM Eric Liu, even though I lost. It was a very tough game, and there were moments where I could’ve got a better result. It was the turning point of my tournament.

CLO: What was going on in your head when you saw you were paired against Magnus, and when he missed your trap? And what has the response been like from friends or the broader chess community?

JB: When I got paired against Magnus, I immediately got nervous. When he missed the trap, I thought that it wasn’t even checkmate and I was missing something. I had to look at it over and over again.

When the game was over, there were already a couple of people congratulating me in an instant. Then it got to become more and more people and then everyone was reaching out.

CLO: Do you have other recent wins you're proud of?

JB: A win that I was proud of was against IM Roman Pyrih last November at the U.S. Masters:

What’s next for the high school senior? Bynum has already started to hear back from colleges. While he says that being able to attend a school with a strong chess program is definitely a goal, other activities besides chess are also important. He plans to study psychology or forensic studies.

I also asked him what his goals were for his chess. Was he aiming for a rating? The FM or IM titles? His answer was definitive: “My goal is to reach GM.”