| Valeri Lilov was born in Varna, Bulgaria. Being taught chess by his father, at the age of seven, Lilov was able to play blindfold with ease and at the age of eight, he became the highest-rated player in the national U10 division thanks to his 1985 Bulgarian chess ranking. In 2000, Valeri Lilov became the European individual school chess champion for boys under 10 years of age after playing at the international chess competition held in Moscow, Russia. Between the years 2000 and 2006, he won repeatedly the National individual chess championships for boys for his respective age division. In 2003, Lilov was bestowed the prestigious city award "Varna" by his hometown mayor, Kiril Yordanov. In 2005, Lilov made a record by achieving thirty-two wins in a row, all from national championships, which included two victories in simultaneous exhibitions against the top Bulgarian grandmasters, Veselin Topalov and Kiril Georgiev. In the same year, Valeri was also selected to receive the presidential award from the president of Republic of Bulgaria at the time, Georgi Parvanov, in recognition of his achievements and overall contribution to chess through the years. In 2006, Valeri Lilov won the Abritus Cup Tournament held in Razgrad, Bulgaria, which was one of the strongest tournaments in Bulgaria at the time. Since 2007, Lilov has been a renowned chess coach and personal trainer to many students from around the world over the internet. He was first recognized by ChessBase, whose chess server Playchess hosted Lilov's first regular chess broadcast, Tiger Lilov's Chess Show. He subsequently started to work for five of the most popular chess sites on the internet, including ChessBase, Chess.com, ICC, ChessLecture, and ChessCube. In 2008, Valeri Lilov earned the title of FIDE Master and in 2010, he recorded his first professional ChessBase DVDs on The Sicilian Kan and The Queen's Gambit Accepted. Lilov continues his collaboration with ChessBase by leading a weekly lecture every Monday on Playchess. For ICC and ChessLecture.com, he works as professional chess lecturer, recording short thematic lectures on a regular basis. |
