GG Al-Mansoori

Hamad Al-Mansoori spent three decades building a property group in Abu Dhabi: towers, districts, and the patient assembly of land nobody else had seen the shape of. He learned the game in his father's majlis and has never once raised his voice over a board.

He underwrites one of the Gulf's most respected tournament series, which means he pays for the room, greets the field at the door, and then beats most of it. He builds a position the way he assembled the land: nothing loose, nothing offered, no point that can be attacked later. He is courteous to everybody and close to nobody. He is also the only member of this club who runs a circuit of his own, and he has not said what he intends to do about that.