Alexander Grischuk

Alexander Grischuk
Full name Alexander Igorevich Grischuk
Country Russia
Born (1983-10-31) October 31, 1983
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Title Grandmaster
FIDE rating 2737 (December 2016)
(No. 14 in the November 2015 FIDE World Rankings)
Peak rating 2810 (December 2014)
Peak ranking No. 3 (May 2014)

Alexander Igorevich Grischuk (Russian: Алекса́ндр И́горевич Грищу́к; born October 31, 1983) is a Russian chess grandmaster and Russian Champion in 2009.

He has won two team gold medals and one individual bronze medal at Chess Olympiads.[1] He was a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the 2013 World Team Chess Championship in Antalya.[2] He has also won the World Blitz Chess Championships of 2006, 2012 and 2015.

Chess career

In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000, Grischuk made it to the semifinals, losing to Alexei Shirov. In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 he made it to the quarter finals, where he lost 3–1 to eventual champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Alexander Grischuk, 1992 at Duisburg,
2nd at the World Chess Championship under 10

Grischuk finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE World Cup, which qualified him for the 2007 Candidates Tournament in May–June 2007. He won his matches against Vladimir Malakhov (+2 −0 =3) and Sergei Rublevsky (tied at +1 −1 =4, winning the rapid playoff +2 −0 =1), to advance to the eight-player FIDE World Chess Championship 2007 tournament. In that tournament he scored 5½ out of 14, placing last in the eight-player field.

In 2009, Grischuk won the Russian Chess Championship.[3] In the same year he became the champion of Linares 2009, winning on tie-break over Vassily Ivanchuk because he had more wins. In 2010, he finished second in Linares to Veselin Topalov.

Grischuk finished third in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2010, which qualified him as the first alternate for the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship 2012 cycle. Upon the withdrawal of world No. 2 Magnus Carlsen from the candidates tournament, Grischuk was appointed to take his place.[4]

In the World Chess Championship 2012 Candidates tournament, Grischuk was seeded 6th out of eight players, and faced Levon Aronian in the first round. After splitting the four regular games 2–2, Grischuk won the rapid playoff 2½–1½ to advance to the semifinals. In the semifinals, he faced world No. 4 and former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Grischuk won the blitz playoff 1½–0½ to advance to the final. In the final, he faced 2009 Chess World Cup winner Boris Gelfand for the right to play Viswanathan Anand in 2012 for the World Championship. After drawing the first five games, Gelfand won the final game to win the match 3½–2½.

2013

Grischuk played in the 2013 Candidates Tournament, which took place in London, from 15 March to 1 April. He finished sixth, with +1−2=11.[5]

2014

In November 2014 Grischuk took clear first place with 5,5/7 in the TASHIR Chess Tournament in Memory of Tigran Petrosian.[6] This achievement enabled him to cross the 2800 Elo rating mark.

Blitz player

In 2006 he won the World Blitz Championship in Rishon Lezion, Israel with 10½/15.[7] He won his second World Blitz Championship in 2012 at Astana, Kazakhstan with 20 points out of thirty games.[8] In October 2015, Grischuk won for the third time the World Blitz Championship in Berlin with a score of 15,5/21, half point ahead of Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Vladimir Kramnik.[9]

Personal life

Grischuk is married to the Ukrainian GM Natalia Zhukova.[10]

Awards
Preceded by
Viswanathan Anand
Levon Aronian
Magnus Carlsen
World Blitz Chess Champion
2006
2012
2015
Succeeded by
Vassily Ivanchuk
Lê Quang Liêm
Incumbent
Preceded by
Peter Svidler
Russian Chess Champion
2009
Succeeded by
Ian Nepomniachtchi

References

External links

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