Miguel Santos Ruiz

Miguel Santos Ruiz (born 4 October 1999 in Utrera, Seville) is a Spanish chess grandmaster, player of the Spanish National Team, coach of the Swiss Absolute National Team and current coach of Fabiano Caruana, the world number 2 in chess. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster (GM) by FIDE in 2019.

Santos is the great-great-grandson of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno, and great-grandson of Fernando de Unamuno. On the FIDE Elo list of May 2021 he had an ELO of 2594 points, making him the ninth highest-ranked active player in Spain and 263rd in the world. His peak rating has been 2605 ELO fide in classical chess.

Chess Player

In 2013 he was proclaimed Spanish under-16 champion in Salobreña. Also in 2013 he tied for first place, and was runner-up on a tie-break, at the under-14 European Championships (the champion was Jorden Van Foreest). In 2017 he tied for third place at the U18 European Championships (the champion was Jesper Søndergaard Thybo). In March 2018 he was 19th in the European Individual Championship in Batumi (Georgia), the first Spanish qualifier, and that gave him a place in the 2019 World Chess Cup. Later in this competition he was eliminated by top GM Wei Yi in the first round. Also in 2018 he won the Grandmaster title. In October 2019 he was fourth in the World Under-20 Chess Championship held in New Delhi (the champion was Evgeny Shtembuliak). In November 2019 he was ninth in the Spanish Absolute Championship in Marbella (the champion was Alexei Shirov). Also in November 2019 he was third in the ‘II Festival VIII Centenario de la Universidad de Salamanca’, behind the Venezuelan grandmaster Eduardo Iturrizaga and Ruslan Ponomariov

Chess Commentator

He has also developed a chess commentary, first on the chess24 platform, then on chess.com and currently also on his own youtube channel. He is known for sharing in his content a solid knowledge of opening theory.

Chess Coach

Another facet that he has developed within the field of chess has been as a coach. In this aspect he has been, Coach of the Swiss Absolute National Team Current coach of GM Fabiano Caruana, the world number 2 in classical chess.