Alexandra Botez

Alexandra was born on September 24, 1995, in Dallas, Texas, to Romanian immigrant parents from Bucharest. She grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and later Portland, Oregon, holding dual Canadian and American nationality. Her father, a former chess coach and International Arbiter, introduced her to chess at age six. By eight, she had won her first Canadian girls' national championship, and she went on to claim five Canadian girls' titles and the U.S. Girls' National Championship at 15. She represented Canada at the Women's Chess Olympiads in 2012, 2014, and 2016, earning the Woman FIDE Master title in 2013 with a peak rating of 2092. After graduating from Stanford in 2017 with a degree in International Relations, she balanced competitive play with building an online presence.

Her online career centers on the BotezLive Twitch channel, launched in 2016 and co-hosted with her younger sister Andrea. The channel features chess, poker, variety games like Portal 2, and casual chat sessions, drawing a peak of 91,000 viewers during the 2021 BlockChamps event. Their YouTube channel has amassed 1.88 million subscribers, while Alexandra's personal poker-focused channel and TikTok account expand her reach. She signed with Envy Gaming in 2020, moved to OpTic Gaming in 2022, and joined Creative Artists Agency that same year. Beyond streaming, she transitioned to professional poker in 2022, winning $456,900 on a Hustler Casino Live stream and becoming a GGPoker ambassador in 2024. She has used her platform to advocate for women in chess, serving on the Susan Polgar Foundation board and speaking out against sexism, though her shift toward poker has drawn some criticism from fans concerned about gambling promotion. Now based in Los Angeles, she continues streaming, commentating events like PogChamps, and pursuing poker goals, all while maintaining the sharp, tactical style that defined her chess career.