Maxim Dlugy

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Maxim Alexandrovich Dlugy (born January 29, 1966) is an American chess grandmaster. He was born in Moscow and moved to the United States with his family in 1977. He became an International Master in 1982, won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1985, and earned the grandmaster title in 1986 for his performance at the Dubai World Chess Olympiad with the U.S. team.

Dlugy has long been known as a strong speed chess player and was once ranked No. 1 in the world in blitz by the World Blitz Chess Association. He had several top finishes in national events, including third place in the 1984 U.S. Championship, second place in New York in 1985, second in Clichy in 1986–87, and third in the 1987 U.S. Championship. He graduated from the Dalton School in New York City in 1984. In 1988 he won the World Open in Philadelphia, taking a $25,000 prize.

In 1990 Dlugy served as president of the United States Chess Federation. He was the first chess grandmaster hired by IBM to work on the Deep Blue computer project. In 2006 he received a special invitation to play in the U.S. Championship in San Diego, where he finished with a positive score.

Beyond chess, Dlugy has worked on Wall Street and was a principal of the Russian Growth Fund, a hedge fund once associated with Garry Kasparov. He also helped investigate cheating in chess, including the 2013 Bulgarian scandal involving Borislav Ivanov, who was banned after accusations of cheating.

In recent years Dlugy faced online cheating allegations himself. In 2017 and 2020 he admitted to cheating in Chess.com’s Titled Tuesday events and was banned from cash-prize tournaments. The discussions around these episodes intersected with the wider Carlsen–Niemann controversy. In 2022 Dlugy published a lengthy statement denying actual cheating and denying involvement with Niemann.

Dlugy also ran Chess Max Academy, a chess school with locations in New York City and Connecticut. He was briefly imprisoned in Russia in April 2005 on embezzlement charges but was acquitted and released later that year.