Jakov Geller, born in Moscow in 1986, achieved the grandmaster title in 2011. Jakov has been one of Russia's top modern coaches since 2007 and his pupils have included grandmasters Ivan Bukavshin and Alexandr Predke, international masters Darsen Sanzhaev, Alexey Mokshanov and Rudik Makarian, and WGM Dinara Wagner (Dordzhieva). The Russian team that Jakov coached in 2009 took first place in the U16 Olympiad. He was named Children's Trainer of the Year in 2010 by the Russian Chess Federation. In 2021 he won FIDE's Samuel Reshevsky Award for the best achievement of a coach of a junior prodigy (U-14). Jakov has won prizes in over 20 Russian and international tournaments. He is the author of Grandmaster Ivan Bukavshin: A Chess Prodigy's Career in 64 Games (Elk and Ruby, 2020) and 1500 Forced Mates (Elk and Ruby, 2021).