Samay Raina is an Indian stand-up comedian, YouTuber, content creator and chess enthusiast
who was born on October 26, 1997, in Jammu, India. He grew up in a Kashmiri Pandit family and spent part of his childhood in Hyderabad before moving to Pune for higher education. He attended Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet, and later studied Print Engineering at Pune Vidhyarthi Griha's College of Engineering and Technology. Although he initially pursued engineering, Raina gradually realised that comedy was his passion. He began performing at open-mic events in Pune in 2017 and eventually started opening for established comedians. His breakthrough came in 2019 when he became the joint winner of Amazon Prime Video's stand-up comedy competition Comicstaan 2, alongside Aakash Gupta.
Samay Raina subsequently developed a distinctive identity through his YouTube channel, combining stand-up comedy, gaming, livestreaming and chess. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his chess streams became particularly popular, and he collaborated with several leading chess personalities, including Viswanathan Anand, Vidit Gujrathi, Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Judit Polgar. He also organised online chess events and helped bring chess to a wider entertainment audience. In 2024, he launched India's Got Latent, a comedy and talent-based show that became a major online phenomenon. His career has since expanded across stand-up comedy, digital entertainment, chess and content creation, making him one of India's prominent internet comedians.