Shaun Press has been PNG’s man at the board since 2000, turning up at seven Chess Olympiads and building a reputation as one of the game’s most colourful characters along the way. In 2004, he refused doping control outright: a stand that forced FIDE to rewrite its own rules. In 2019, he faced down future World Champion Ding Liren at the World Cup and lost, but got the story of a lifetime out of it.

Off the board, he’s a veteran arbiter and the elected head of chess across the entire Oceania region, plus a software developer and roboticist who’s coded his own chess engines. His uncle once ran the Australian Antarctic Division, so in a way, he’s been heading south his whole life.