Alexandra Botez

She started playing chess at age six and went on to win five national championships in Canada and the United States.⁠[1]

In 2011, aged 15, she won the Kasparov Chess Foundation All-Girls Championships undefeated, earning a four-year full chess scholarship to the University of Texas at Dallas, but she then realized she did not want to play chess professionally.⁠[2]

Between 2012 and 2016 she played in three Chess Olympiads.⁠[3]

She reached her peak FIDE rating of 2092 in 2016 and holds the Woman FIDE Master title.⁠[3]

Turning down the chess scholarship, she enrolled at Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry, studied international relations and became the first female president of the university’s chess club.⁠[4]

In 2016, while still a student, she began streaming chess on Twitch. She recalls that the chat in her first stream was mostly flirting or comments on her looks, and she stopped streaming until moderators came to help.⁠[5]

After graduating in 2017 she worked for a startup; when it failed, she decided to pursue chess streaming full time.⁠[5]

In 2020 her then 18-year-old sister, Andrea Botez, became her streaming partner.⁠[5]

At the start of 2020 BotezLive had only about 61,000 followers on Twitch; by January 2021 it had more than 581,000, and its YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel had 237,000 subscribers.⁠[6]

On December 21, 2020, Dallas-based esports organization Envy Gaming announced it had signed the Botez sisters as the inaugural talent of its new creator network and ambassador program; the release said the sisters had recently moved to Austin, Texas, and that BotezLive streams had drawn as many as 36,000 concurrent viewers.⁠[7]

On January 17, 2021, BlockChamps, hosted by the Botez sisters and sponsored by Envy and Cash App, pitted eight Minecraft streamers against one another in a chess knockout; the stream drew more than 91,000 concurrent and nearly one million unique viewers, breaking the single-stream chess record previously held by PogChamps.⁠[8]

US Chess announced that the Botez sisters would join its Girls Club online “Meet & Compete” on January 28, 2021; Alexandra had already been one of the club’s early guests, speaking about the “Botez Gambit,” and had been the very first guest on the podcast Ladies Knight.⁠[9]

In spring 2021, reigning world champion Magnus CarlsenMagnus CarlsenMagnus Carlsen is a Norwegian chess grandmaster who won the World Chess Championship five times between 2013 and 2021, set the highest rating in history, 2882, in 2014, and has won multiple world rapid and blitz titles; he also co-founded Play Magnus Group.Open the full entry reached out to collaborate on a livestream, where the two talked about his childhood approach to chess and discussed the game.⁠[2]

In 2022 she played the Hustler Casino Live high-stakes cash game streamed from Los Angeles alongside Phil Hellmuth, Tom Dwan and MrBeastMrBeastMrBeast, born James Stephen Donaldson and commonly known as Jimmy Donaldson, is an American video creator, television producer and entrepreneur. He began running a YouTube channel in 2012, later founded Beast Industries and the snack brand Feastables, and launched several charitable fundraising campaigns. In June 2026, his main channel became the first individual creator’s YouTube channel to reach 500 million subscribers.Open the full entry, turning a $50,000 buy-in into a profit of $456,900 and finishing as the night’s biggest winner.⁠[10]

On September 9, 2022, she and her sister appeared on episode 319 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, discussing chess tournaments, streaming, training, street chess and Magnus Carlsen.⁠[11]

At the 2023 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure she cashed for the first time, finishing 42nd in a $3,300 event for $5,200, and then won a $550 hyper turbo event over a field of 79 entries for $10,815.⁠[12]

In April 2023 Rolling Stone named the Botez sisters to its list of the year’s most influential creators, noting that they stream from a Los Angeles content house launched by Envy Gaming and describing Alexandra as an outspoken critic of sexism in professional chess.⁠[13]

In March 2024 GGPoker unveiled her as a brand ambassador with a heads-up match against Daniel NegreanuDaniel NegreanuDaniel Negreanu is a Toronto-born Canadian professional poker player nicknamed “Kid Poker” who, as of July 2026, had won eight World Series of Poker bracelets, was twice named WSOP Player of the Year and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2014.Open the full entry; she had previously played under PokerStars and 888poker patches and said she was being coached by Landon Tice and Chance Kornuth.⁠[14]

In 2024 she returned to over-the-board tournaments, announcing in June that she had won two events in a row.⁠[1]

In July 2024 she and her sister hosted the Botez Chess Camp, a FIDE-rated round robin in Malibu, California, where eight female players lived together for a week; Jennifer Yu won with 6/7, and she finished half a point behind in second after winning her last four games.⁠[15]

At WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas in December 2024 she finished 60th in the $10,000 GGMillion$ Championship for $22,190 and 187th in the $25,000 Super Main Event for $67,300, her two career-high cashes.⁠[16]

During the Freestyle Chess event at Weissenhaus in February 2025 she played a long-time-control Freestyle exhibition game against Anna Cramling, with commentary by Levon Aronian and Andrea Botez; the two players’ channels reached well over 200,000 viewers.⁠[17]

On October 14, 2025, she unveiled her first video game, Chess Arena, co-produced with indie studio Millions of Monsters: a chess battle royale in which up to 40 players fight in real time on a giant board, with a Steam playtest from October 25 to November 2.⁠[18]

Millions of Monsters was co-founded by its CEO, Kartik Trehan, and Botez.⁠[19]

By July 2026 Chess Arena had officially launched to the public as a free-to-play game on its website, and on July 31 she hosted the Chess Arena Creator Brawl, a $2,500 event featuring creators from chess and other communities.⁠[20]

X: Public account: https://x.com/alexandrabotez (opens in a new window)⁠[16]

YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BotezLive (opens in a new window)⁠[18]

Twitch: Public channel: https://www.twitch.tv/botezlive (opens in a new window)⁠[9]

Chess Arena: Official website: https://chessarena.gg/ (opens in a new window)⁠[20]