Olexandr Bortnyk

Olexandr Mykolayovych Bortnyk (Ukrainian: Олекса́ндр Микола́йович Бо́ртник; born 18 October 1996) is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2015, at the age of 19.

A former chess prodigy, Bortnyk is one of the highest rated online players in both Blitz and Bullet.

In 2018, Bortnyk immigrated to the United States with his family and founded the Bortnik School of Chess. He has resided in Charlotte, North Carolina since 2022. Bortnyk has an older brother, Mykola Bortnyk, who holds the title of International Master. Bortnyk regularly streams on Twitch and uploads content on YouTube. He cowrote a PGN course on the Jobava London with the late Daniel Naroditsky and was co-writing a Chessable course on the King's Indian Defense with Naroditsky before his death. He stated on a later stream he would very likely continue it by annotating the text and recording the videos, as Naroditsky had already typed out all the moves. The course was released on Christmas Day 2025. Bortnyk collaborated with GM Kayden Troff to finish the course.

Early years He was born in the village of Oleksandrivka, Voznesensk Raion, Mykolaiv Oblast. He started playing chess at the age of 3. In 2001, five-year-old Bortnyk took part in competitions for the first time. Since 2002, he studied under the guidance of coach Roman Khayetskyi. After graduating from Oleksadrivska secondary school, he entered Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding.

Chess career/awards Bortnyk has won multiple Ukrainian and European youth tournaments, as well as many chess.com and lichess.org online events.

2003–2012 He had impressive results in Ukrainian/European Youth Championships (U8, U12, U14, U16) during this period.

2013 Silver medalist of the World Championship U18 (Al-Ain, UAE) Champion of Ukraine U20 (Rapid chess) Champion of Ukraine U20 (Blitz) 1st place — Dvorkovich Cup 2014 In 2014, Bortnyk won the World Youth Chess Championships in the U18 category held in Durban, South Africa. 2016 Bronstein Memorial (Minsk) — 2nd place. 2019 He reached the final of the Chess.com Bullet Chess championship but lost to Hikaru Nakamura. 2023 In January 2023, Bortnyk tied for first place with GM Razvan Preotu at the Charlotte Open, claiming the title on tiebreaks. 2024 In December 2024, Bortnyk tied for eleventh place at the World Blitz Championship. He finished with 9 points, just behind a 10-way tie for first at 9.5.