Olexandr Bortnyk
Olexandr Mykolayovych Bortnyk is a Ukrainian chess player. He was awarded the Grandmaster title in 2015, at the age of 19.
A former chess prodigy, Bortnyk is considered one of the strongest online players in Blitz and Bullet.
In 2018, Bortnyk immigrated to the United States with his family, 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, Voznesensky district, Mykolaiv region. 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 Oleksandrivska secondary school, he entered Admiral Makarov National Shipbuilding University.Chess career
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 during this period.2013
- Silver medalist of the World Championship U18
- Champion of Ukraine U20
- Champion of Ukraine U20
- 1st place — Dvorkovich Cup