Cristhian Cruz Sánchez is a Peruvian chess grandmaster who was born on September 24, 1992 in Lima, Peru. After winning the Peruvian Youth Chess Championship twice, in 2007 and 2008, he achieved his International Master title in 2011 and then his Grandmaster title in 2014. Cruz also won the Andean Chess Championship in 2010, the South American U20 Championship in 2012, and the Peruvian Chess Championship in 2014 and 2015.
In international competitions, Cruz has represented Peru in the Chess Olympiad from 2012 to 2016. In 2017, he competed in the World Cup for the first time, but he was defeated in the first round by Dutch grandmaster Loek Van Wely. Cruz’s highest ranking on the FIDE World Ranking List was 134th, which he achieved in 2016.
Apart from his chess career, Cruz finished his studies in economics at the National University of Callao in 2015. The same year, he also published a book about chess theory, called "Three Notions of Chess Pieces".