Grigoriy Oparin became a Candidate Master in 2007, an FM in 2009, an IM in 2011 and a GM (2013).
Oparin's first FIDE-rated event was the Moscow U16 Championship of 2005, in which he played at the age of 8. His inaugural FIDE rating of 1980 was at the age of 8 years and 6 months, and in 2007, he was awarded the Candidate Master title for placing =2nd at the U10 European Youth Championship behind the winner Kirill Alekseenko, and alongside fellow talents Mikhail Antipov, Daniil Yuffa, Jan-Krzysztof Duda and Avital Boruchovsky. He won his 1st IM norm when he took 2nd place at the Marianske Lazne 2009 - IM – B in the Czech Republic, during which event he also defeated IMs for the first time, namely Sebastian Plischki, Amon Simutowe and compatriot Viktor Volodin. Oparin made further strong gains in the 2009 Moscow Open (6/9), the Moscow region Spring 2009 IM (9.5/14), which between them boosted his rating to 2350 by his 12th birthday. He scored his 2nd IM norm at the Autumn in Chess Livingroom V. Dvorkovich 2009, where he placed =1st. Late in 2009 in the RSSU-18 IM, he again placed =1st, winning his 3rd IM norm; this event also saw him defeating GMs for the first time: Kazakhastan's Yakov Nesterov and Moldova's Alexey Khruschiov.
In 2009, Oparin debuted in high level team competition when he played on board 5 for Gostinaya Dvorkovicha in the Russian Team Championship: Higher League (2009). He scored his 4th and 5th IM norms at the 2011 Aeroflot Open and at the First Saturday IM in April 2011. In September 2011, following solid results at the Czech Open and at the Olomouc Chess Summer 2011 - A2 - GM tournament, his rating finally reached 2400 to claim his IM title. There followed =4th at the 13th International Chess Festival in Trieste while his undefeated 6.5/9 (including 4.5 points against 7 GM opponents) at the Chigorin Memorial in October 2011 earned him his first GM norm. He scored 6/9 in the Marienbad Open 2012 - A1 - GM tournament in Marianske Lazne in the Czech Republic in January 2012, narrowly missing a GM norm. His =2nd (5th on tiebreak), at the 2012 Aeroflot Open Division B, just fell short of winning him another GM norm. Also in the 2011-12 season, Oparin played board 5 for his team Rakita Belgorod in the Russian Team Championship (2012) scoring 4.5/7 (+2 =5; TPR 2535). In May 2012, he came 3rd at the World's Youth Stars (2012). In July he scored a respectable 6/9 at the GM Open in Pardubice, Czech Republic, and in August he contested the World Junior Championship (2012), scoring 7.5/13 (par for rating). In October, he scored a par for rating 6/9 at the Chigorin Memorial 2012. In January 2013, he won his 2nd GM norm at Gibraltar Masters (2013) In September 2013 he won his 3rd GM norm at the Trieste Open where he came clear first with 6.5/9.
In March 2014, Oparin scored 7.5/11 points in the European Individual Chess Championship, which qualified the top 23 finishers to the FIDE World Cup. He tied for 10th-24th places, finishing 24th on tiebreak score. The following month, he won the Russian Junior Championship. Two years later, he won the Russian Higher League, the qualifier for the Superfinal of the Russian Chess Championship. In this latter event, he scored 5.5/11 points.
In December 2016, Oparin took part in the Nutcracker Match of the Generations in Moscow. It was a match between two teams, Kings (Boris Gelfand, Alexander Morozevich, Alexei Shirov and Alexey Dreev) and Princes (Vladimir Fedoseev, Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev and Oparin), held with the Scheveningen system.Oparin and Shirov were the best players scoring 10 points and played a two-game playoff match. Oparin won by 1.5-0.5 and qualified to play in the Kortchnoi Zurich Chess Challenge.
At the FIDE Grand Swiss (2021) he tied for 2nd/third with Fabiano Caruana both with 7.5/11. thus becoming the 2nd runner-up behind the champion Alireza Firouzja and the 1st runner-up Fabiano Caruana. Oparin had a weaker tiebreak. However, he qualified to take part in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022.
* http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.c...
Wikipedia article: Grigoriy Oparin
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