June 21, 2012

Grandmaster Watch!!

Russia is the land of chess and the place where new grandmasters are created every day. We are going to look on the career of Vadim Zvjaginsev a very strong Russian GM through this article.




Grandmaster Watch!!
By Priyadharshan Kannappan




Born on August 18, 1976 in Moscow; He graduated from Moscow State University in 1996. Zvjaginsev was under the tutelage of the well renowned chess player Arthur Yusupov in his early days and during that time he won the European Under-16 Championship in 1992.International Master title was awarded to him in 1993 and with his ever growing playing strength he became a Grandmaster in just a year in 1994. He was also trained by the world famous chess coach Mark Dvoretsky.

He is rated 2683 in May 2012 rating list and is ranked No.67 in the world, he reached his career high of 2688 in January 2012 and was ranked world no.60 then. Zvjaginsev’s features in the world top 100 right from July 2000 and his best ranking was World No.23 when he was rated 2680 in October 2002.

Zvjaginsev is a very original player who shows lot of creative and quirky ideas over the board; he introduced 1.e4 c5 2.Na3!? idea on the GM level chess when he played against the former World Champion Alexander Khalifman in the 2005 Russian Super final and he won the game!! This opening from then is called as Zvjaginsev variation in Sicilian. There is also another variation named after him in the 1.d4 Meran system!

His important performances includes winning the strong Essen tournament twice, first in 2000 and then in 2002 ahead of strong Grandmasters. He won the individual silver medal in the 1997 European Team Chess Championship and he had represented Russia in chess Olympiads when the team had podium finishes!

Here are 3 of his classics games for you readers to enjoy! (I would like to thank Vidit for helping me with setting these boards)