Our Team
NM Albert Liang
Founder and Executive Director
Albert is a freshman at Stanford University and alum of the Westminster Schools. He first began developing his passion for chess from the ripe age of five, now garnering more than a decade of experience and achieving the national master level. He earned a bronze medal at the 2017 Pan-American Youth Chess Championship in Costa Rica. For his outstanding academic achievement, leadership abilities, chess play, and sportsmanship, he was one of five recipients of the United States Chess Federation Scholar-Chessplayer Award. Outside of chess, he enjoys playing varsity tennis at school and watching a wide variety of sports from football to soccer.
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Gavin Du
President
Gavin is a senior at Walton and has played chess since elementary school. He has been at Chess Buddies since 2020. Outside of chess, he has fenced since he was 9 at Nellya Fencers and is an active member in volunteering for his community. Some of his interests include computing, sports, and learning more about different cultures of the world.
Fun Fong
Senior Advisor
Fun Fong, MD FACEP, began both his chess and organizational career when he served as President of his high school chess club. He continued to serve in leadership positions during college, professional school, and in his professional organization.
He renewed his interest in chess by attending Castle Chess camp in 2001. He became a staff member in succeeding years and served on its Board from 2008-2017. He started becoming a tournament director for national events in 2009. He started serving on the Georgia Chess Association Board in 2009 and served as its President from 2011 to 2017. During that time, Fun helped develop a larger volunteer organization that held 1000-player scholastic tournaments. He increased the number of open tournaments. He increased the organizational treasury significantly.
Anand Srinivasan
Senior Instructor
Anand is a freshman at Yale University and an alum of the Westminster Schools. He ran on the cross country and track teams, wrote for the school newspaper, and participated in the community service club at Westminster. Currently, Anand has achieved the expert level in chess. His other interests include playing soccer, watching anime with his brothers, and reading.
Ashwin Pilai
Senior Instructor
Ashwin is a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis and an alum of the Westminster Schools. He has played chess for seven years. Since his childhood kid, he has loved chess and used it as an outlet to express his creativity and improve on his problem solving skills. Outside of chess, Ashwin enjoys swimming and playing the cello.
Stephen Eisenhauer
Senior Instructor
Stephen is an alum of the Westminster Schools and a junior at the University of Chicago. Having achieved the Class A level, he has been playing chess competitively for more than eight years and teaching chess to kids with Chess Atlanta for four years. He also plays chess at Dragon Con, as the ChessJawa, in order to raise money for charity.
Daniel Liu
Co-Founder and Co-executive Director
Daniel is a freshman at Princeton University and has more than nine years of chess experience. He began playing chess in elementary school and played chess competitively since then. Some of his other hobbies include swimming, basketball, and gaming. He swims at the competitive level year round for the Chattahoochee Gold Swim Club.
Brian Kuang
Vice President
Brian Kuang is currently a senior at Walton High School. He has many years of diverse volunteering experience with a large variation in age groups, as well as experience in teaching and coaching sports. Some of his hobbies include watching television, playing basketball and tennis, and hiking.
GM Alonso Zapata
Senior Advisor
Alonso achieved the coveted title of Grandmaster in 1984 and beat the future world champion Viswanathan Anand in six moves. He has been the Colombian Chess Champion a total of eight times, and has competed in the Chess Olympiads, representing Colombia twelve times. He finished second in the World Junior Chess Championship in 1977, also becoming the Colombian Sports Man of the year that same year. As a FIDE Senior Trainer, he has also coached the Olympic teams of Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago in addition to top ranked girls all over Latin America.
IM Carlos Perdomo
Senior Advisor
Carlos acquired an International Master title in 1998 and is currently and has been one of the top five highest rated players in Georgia continuously since 2002. He has played in two World Championships (Under 14 and Under 20), two Chess Olympiads (1996 and 1998) and was the Under 14 Colombian National Champion in 1984. He has been the GA State Champion three times since 2001. He founded and owns Chess Atlanta, which has provided over ten years of club instruction, camps, and private lessons to students of all ages, including Emory University’s Chess Team. He has led many of his younger students to victory at local, state, and national competitions.
David Liu
Senior Instructor
David is a senior at Walton High School. David has always enjoyed chess growing up and wants to be able to spread this opportunity to other children. Outside of his time spent sharing and teaching the game of chess, he enjoys playing tennis and competing on his school's Science Olympiad team.