Pascal Charbonneau was born in Montreal in on May 6th, 1983.

He started playing chess at 6 when his mother and then later his father, taught him the game. In grade 1 he signed up for an extra-curricular program offered at his school. The courses were offered by the Chess'n Math Association. He came 3rd that year at the Quebec provincial Canadian Chess Challenge event. He went on to win the provincial competition in grades 2, 3 and 4. He won the National title for the first time in grade 5. FM Richard Berubé became his coach. He attributes much of his success and love of the game to Richard.

In the summer of 2000 at the age of 17, he played a match against Igor Miladinovic, a former World Junior Champion rated over 200 points higher than him. He ended up winning that match 3.5-1.5, which proved to be a big confidence booster for him. The match was organized by André Langlois. This was followed later that year, by his first appearance on the Canadian Olympic team where he drew against Grandmaster Kiril Georgiev.

He became an International Master in 2001 (picking up a $2,000 bursary from the Chess'n Math Association. See http://chess-math.org/excellence.htm ) and went on to win the Canadian Closed later that year, ahead of Grandmasters Kevin Spraggett and Alexandre Lesiège. Then, he received offers of a Chess Scholarship from two American Universities. He accepted the offer from the University of Maryland where he studied financial economics. Despite working hard at school, after his first freshman year he scored his first two Grandmaster norms. The first was at the Montreal International where he beat 3 grandmasters in a row. This was followed immediately by another Grandmaster norm at the extremely strong Continental Championship of the Americas where he placed third . From 2003 to 2006 his play was inconsistent. However, he came up with another Canadian Closed win to retain the title of Canadian Champion. A major event was the 2004 Chess Olympiad where he represented Canada for a 2nd time. He played against some of the top players in the world today gaining enormous experience.

In early 2006, he finally scored his third and final Grandmaster norm when he won the Chicago International. He has just completed his studies at the University of Maryland in May 2006.