About Qiyu Zhou
Qiyu Zhou, born on January 6, 2000, in Jingzhou, China, is a Chinese-born Canadian and Finnish chess player, poker player, and content creator known for her strategic skills and engaging online presence. She spent her early years in Antibes, France, where her father worked at the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation, and her mother held a doctorate in English linguistics. At age four, she moved to Oulu, Finland, when her father joined the VTT Technical Research Centre and the University of Oulu. Around age 11, she relocated to Ottawa, Canada, with her family. Zhou attended Colonel By Secondary School and was a member of the RA Centre Chess Club. In 2017, she began pursuing a bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto, double majoring in economics and statistics with a mathematics minor, but took a leave of absence in January 2021 to focus on streaming full-time. She competed in pole vaulting, basketball, and badminton in high school and speaks English, Mandarin Chinese, Finnish, and French. Her ethnicity is Chinese, reflecting her birth in Jingzhou, China, and her parents’ Chinese heritage, as noted in sources describing her as Chinese-born Canadian. She is known as Qiyu Zhou, Nemo Zhou, and her online alias akaNemsko, derived from her nickname “Nemo,” given by her parents at age three due to her interest in aquariums, inspired by the 2003 film Finding Nemo. A high school friend modified it to “Nemsko,” and she added “aka” (also known as) for her Twitch handle, as simpler variants were unavailable.
Zhou’s chess career began at age three in France, where she joined a chess club and quickly showed talent, defeating older opponents. In Finland, coached by Jouni Tolonen at the Shakki-77 chess club, she became the youngest Finnish national chess champion at age five, winning the under-10 open division in 2005. She repeated as under-10 champion from 2007 to 2010 and won the Finnish Women’s National Chess Championship in 2010 at age 10. After switching to represent Canada in 2011, she won Canadian girls’ national titles at under-12 (2012) and under-14 (2013) levels and the Canadian women’s championship in 2016. Her biggest junior achievement was winning the under-14 girls’ World Youth Chess Championship in 2014. She earned the Woman Grandmaster (WGM) and FIDE Master (FM) titles in 2016, the first Canadian woman to do so, with a peak FIDE rating of 2367 and a career-best world ranking of No. 100 among women. She has represented Canada at the Women’s Chess Olympiad since 2014. Her best-rated victory was against International Master Toms Kantāns (2496) in 2016. Zhou began playing poker in 2021 after German poker player Fedor Holz offered to swap chess lessons for poker lessons during a stream. She made her live tournament debut at the 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP) $1,000 Ladies Championship and won a $12,000 WPT World Championship package in 2022. She secured first place at the Celebrity Poker Tour (CPT) Invitational in August 2023 ($20,000) and finished runner-up in the CPT Invitational IV in August 2024 ($10,000). She continues to train with a poker coach to improve her skills.
Zhou’s online career spans multiple platforms. On Twitch (@akaNemsko), launched in 2020, she has 348,000 followers and streams chess, poker, and variety games like League of Legends. She signed with Counter Logic Gaming in August 2020, becoming the first chess player to join an esports organization. Her YouTube channel (@Nemo), with 291,000 subscribers, features chess tutorials, poker content, and lifestyle vlogs, emphasizing her love for fashion and travel. On TikTok (@akanemsko), she has 265,100 followers, posting chess tips, poker highlights, and fashion content. Her Instagram accounts include a lifestyle page (@akanemsko) with 287,000 followers and a chess-focused page (@akanemskochess) with 128,000 followers, showcasing her glamorous style and gaming achievements. She collaborates with Chess.com streamers like Alexandra Botez, Andrea Botez, and Hikaru Nakamura and has appeared in WPT Global advertisements.
She is active on subscription sites, including Passes, where fans can access exclusive modeling content. She has kept the door open on making an Onlyfans. Her Twitch and YouTube also offer subscription tiers for premium content.
Physically, Zhou is approximately 5 feet 4 inches tall with a slender, athletic build suited for her pole vaulting background. She has long, dark hair, often styled in waves, and dark brown eyes. Her breast size is believed to be a B cup, keeping with her petite frame. No surgeries on her breasts, lips, nose, or buttocks are reported, and she has not acknowledged any cosmetic procedures. She has no visible tattoos or piercings, maintaining a clean, versatile appearance for her fashion-focused content.
Fans, including male audiences, praise Zhou for her striking beauty with many debating if she is the most beautiful chess player in the world. She is often described as “charming” and “engaging” on X and Reddit. Her fashion sense, blending bold and elegant styles, is frequently highlighted, with Instagram posts showcasing outfits that complement her slender frame. Men find her sexy for her confident streaming presence, witty banter, and glamorous aesthetic, with comments on Babepedia noting her “stunning” and “flamboyant” style. Her expressive eyes and radiant smile are commonly complimented features. Her uniqueness lies in her multifaceted career—excelling as a chess grandmaster, emerging poker player, and influential streamer—while maintaining a relatable, down-to-earth persona.
Her relationship status is not publicly confirmed, but in December 2022, she faced controversy when she awarded a $12,000 WPT World Championship package to her boyfriend in a YouTube giveaway, prompting accusations of unfairness on poker Twitter. Zhou did not publicly address the specifics of the relationship or the controversy beyond the initial announcement and her content seems to say she is single.
Her income is estimated at $500,000–$1 million annually, derived from Twitch subscriptions, YouTube ad revenue, TikTok sponsorships, Instagram brand deals (e.g., Chess.com, WPT Global), poker winnings ($30,000 documented from CPT events), and Patreon subscriptions. Her net worth is speculated to be $5 million, though this is an estimate without financial disclosures.
Controversies include the 2022 poker giveaway incident, which sparked debate but subsided without further escalation. In 2021, a Reddit thread questioned the legitimacy of her WGM and FM titles, citing her rapid rating gains in specific tournaments, but no evidence of wrongdoing was confirmed, and the claims were not widely substantiated. Zhou did not respond to inquiries about the allegations.
As of May 2025, Qiyu Zhou, now 25, remains active as a content creator, streaming on Twitch (@akaNemsko) and posting on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. She continues to compete in poker, aiming to improve with her coach’s guidance, and occasionally plays chess, though she has shifted focus from competitive play to streaming. Recent YouTube videos include poker vlogs and fashion hauls, reflecting her ongoing engagement with fans across gaming and lifestyle content. She has now announced plans to pursue being a supermodel.
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