Nicolas Yap was born in San Francisco, California, USA in 1989 and learnt chess at the age of five. He began to play in tournaments at the age of nine and became the K-8 Northern California Champion in 2003. He was a part of the USA delegation at the World Youth in Belfort, France in 2005. A year after having gotten his first IM norm in Philadelphia in 2006, university took up more time than was needed to play in tournaments. Thereafter followed many unforeseen health, financial and sundry other hardships that lasted for over a decade, which hindered him from playing. After a long stretch of not playing, he is back to where he last left off from over 15 years ago on the path towards the GM title, as well as on the way to fulfilling his lifelong dream of going to medical school in Europe to become a doctor.