Championships

<Age> Grischuk’s first international success was coming equal first, but second on count back, at the World U10 Championship in 1992. During the 1990s, he won the under 10, 12, 14 and 16 Russian Championships in which he competed.

<National> Grischuk has been highly successful in Russian Championships in their various forms. He came =3rd in the 56th Russian Championships (2003), outright second in the Russian Championships 2004 (2004) behind Garry Kasparov, 2nd in the Russian Superfinals (2007), and then finally won the Russian Championship Superfinal (2009). He followed up with 3rd in the Russian Championship Superfinal (2010) and =3rd in the Russian Superfinals (2011). His placement in the 2011 event qualified him to contest the Russian Superfinals (2012), in which he scored 4.5/9 after losing his final round game to Peter Svidler, finishing a half point off the lead in a low scoring event.

<World> Grischuk became quite famous as a junior, reaching the semifinals of the 2000 FIDE world championship when he was only sixteen, losing to runner up Alexey Shirov in the second last round, after defeating Darcy Lima, Ilya Smirin, Grigory Serper, Jaan Ehlvest and Vladislav Tkachiev in the preceding rounds. He was less successful in the 2002 FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament, as he lost to Alexander Motylev in round two after beating Ehsan Ghaem Maghami in the first round. In the FIDE World Championship Knockout Tournament (2004) he made it to the quarter finals, defeating Kenneth T Solomon, Vasilios Kotronias, Valerij Filippov, and Alexander Beliavsky before losing 3-1 to eventual champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov. He finished in the top 10 in the 2005 FIDE World Cup, which qualified him for the 2007 Candidates Tournament in May–June 2007. In 2007, he won the Candidates Match: Grischuk-Malakhov (2007) and the Candidates Match: Grischuk vs Rublevsky (2007) to qualify for the FIDE World Championship Tournament (2007), but there he finished last out of the eight players. Grischuk finished third in the FIDE Grand Prix 2008-2010, which qualified him as the first alternate for the World Championship Candidates (2011). Upon the withdrawal of Magnus Carlsen from the Candidates tournament, Grischuk was appointed to take his place. Grischuk caused a major upset in the first round by ousting tournament favourite Levon Aronian in the rapid game tiebreaker after drawing the classical match 2-2 (+0 =4 -0). He met Vladimir Kramnik in the semi-finals, winning in the blitz tiebreaker 1.5-0.5 (+1 =1) after drawing the classical games 2-2 (+0 -0 =4) and the rapid games 2-2 (+0 -0 =4). He met Boris Gelfand in the final match of the Candidates and after drawing the first 5 games, lost the sixth and last game to be eliminated from the Candidates. By virtue of his rating, he qualified to play in the World Cup (2011) as part of the 2013 World Championship cycle; he beat countryman and IM, Vladimir Genba in the first round, French GM Sebastien Feller in the second, compatriots Alexander Morozevich and Vladimir Potkin in the third and fourth rounds, Czech GM David Navara in the quarter final, and Ukrainian Vassily Ivanchuk in the semi final to qualify for the World Championship Candidates (2013). In the final, he met countryman Peter Svidler but lost 2.5-1.5 to secure second place. At the Candidates he scored a rating neutral 6.5/14 (+1 -2 =11) to place 6th out of 8, his sole win being against Ivanchuk.

Grischuk started auspiciously in the 2012-13 Grand Prix series by placing 4th in the FIDE Grand Prix London (2012) behind the 3 co-leaders to collect 90 points to kick off his GP points tally. His second sally into the series resulted in =4th at the FIDE Grand Prix Thessaloniki (2013), adding another 85 points to his Grand Prix points total - he was the only undefeated player in this event. (1)

Tournaments

Grischuk’s best results are 1st at the Young Masters in Lausanne in 2000, 1st at the Chigorin Memorial Tournament in 1999, 1st at the Torshavn International, also in 2000, 2nd at Linares in 2001; 2nd at Wijk aan Zee in 2002, where he scored 8.5/13, =1st with 6.5/9 at Aeroflot A 2002 and 4th at Wijk aan Zee in 2003. He won the 5th Karpov It Tournament (2004) on count back ahead of Sergei Rublevsky and came =3rd in the same event in 2005. He played in his first Tal Memorial (2006) scoring 4.5/9, one point behind the joint winners. At the Tal Memorial (2010), he came =4th, half a point behind the joint winners. In 2009 he scored his first victory at Linares (2009), finishing in first place on count back ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk. In 2010, he finished second in Linares (2010) to Veselin Topalov.

A dab hand at 960 chess, Grischuk won the FiNet Chess 960 Open in 2009 ahead of a huge field of GMs and IMs.

Rapid Play

Along with being a top-level professional, Grischuk is also known as one of the best blitz chess players in the world, having once held the record for highest rating achieved on the Internet Chess Club. His successes at rapid and blitz chess include reaching the last four in the Cap D'Agde FRA (2003), and winning the 2003 Ordix Open and the 11th Ordix Open (2004). In 2006 he won the World Blitz Championship (2006) in Rishon Lezion, Israel with 10.5 points out of 15 games (+9 =3 -2). In 2008, he competed in the 2008 ACP World Cup defeating Karpov, Peter Svidler, and Sergey Karjakin in mini-matches before losing in the final to Teimour Radjabov. In 2009, he won the Moscow blitz championship, came =2nd with 7/9 at the XXIV International tournament at Ciudad De Villarrobledo and defeated Pavel Eljanov and Alexander Moiseenko to make it to the semi-final of the 2009 ACP World Rapid. In 2010 he won the Amber Tournament (Blindfold) (2010) section of the Amber Melody tournament. He lost the CCM5 Rapid Match (2005) (Anand-Grischuk Rapid Match) by 3/8 (+2 =2 -4). In July 2012, Grischuk lead most of the way to win the World Blitz Championship (2012) by half a point ahead of a fast-finishing Carlsen, with 20/30. He placed 3rd with 4.5/7 in the SportAccord World Mind Games (Men's Rapid) (2012) and finished with a poor 8.5/15 in the SportAccord World Mind Games (Men Blitz), shedding 49 blitz rating points. He came second on tiebreak behind Karjakin at the Piterenka rapid in late December 2012 and was runner-up to Karjakin at the Aeroflot Rapid Open (2013) after losing on time in a dramatic Armageddon tiebreaker. He placed outright 3rd in the FIDE World Rapid Championship (2013) with 10.5/15 and 2nd in the FIDE World Blitz Championship (2013) with 20/30, half a point behind the new World Blitz Champion Le Quang Liem.

Olympiads

A member of the gold medal winning Russian team at the 2000 and 2002 Olympiads, Grischuk has also represented Russia at the Olympics in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010 and most recently on board 2 at the Chess Olympiad (2012) held in Istanbul. He earned a bronze medal in 2000 for his results as second reserve.

Team

In the four World Team Championships that were held in 2001, 2005, 2010, and 2011 he won a team silver (2001) and two team golds (2005 and 2010), the individual silver and gold medals for board 3 in 2001 and 2005, the individual silver medal for board 2 in 2011, and the individual bronze medal for board 1 in 2010. As a 16 year old IM, he played for the Russian Team in 1999 in the European Team Championship, coming fourth at first reserve in a team that came 5th; subsequently, he played board three in his team which won gold in the 2003 and 2007 European Team Championships, and then struck individual gold on board 2 at the European Team Championship (2011) when Russia came 5th.

Grischuk’s success in the European Club Cup over the last decade or so from 2001 and 2012 has been outstanding: in that time he has won 5 team golds, a team silver and three team bronzes, combined with two personal gold medals and 3 personal silvers. In 2010 he played for SOCAR Baku (winning individual silver for board 3) after four years with the highly successful Ural Sverdlovsk team, and then in the 28th European Club Cup (2012) he again played for SOCAR Baku, helping his team to gold. Grischuk was a member of the successful Russian team that defeated the Chinese team in the inaugural Russia-China friendly match that was held in 2001. He has also played in the French Team Championships from 2001-2006, the Russian Team championships in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and most recently for his Malakhit Ekaterinburg team where he helped his team to a silver medal in the Russian Team Championships (2013) picking up a gold medal for board 2 (5/6: TPR 2980), the Russian Club Cup in 2009 and 2010, the Bundesliga in 2003; and the Spanish Club Championship in 2007.

Ratings

<Classical> As of 1 June 2013, Grischuk's rating was 2779, and is therefore number 2 in Russia and number 8 in the world;

<Rapid> 2825 (world #2); and

<Blitz> 2858 (world #2).

Other

Grischuk is married to GM Natalia Zhukova. He is also a professional poker player.

Sources and references