Polish U14 Champion (2001); Polish Junior (U20) Champion (2004 & 2005); Polish Champion (2005, 2014, 2016 and 2021). He is married to IM/WGM Alina Kashlinskaya.
Born in Elbląg, Poland. He was one of the seconds for Viswanathan Anand during both the 2008 and 2010 World Championship matches, and is Poland's top player.
Championships
<Youth> In 2001, Wojtaszek won the Polish U14 championship. In 2002, he was =1st (2nd on tiebreak) with Zbigniew Pakleza in the Polish Boys U16 championship in Bartkowa. In 2003, he came equal first (2nd on countback) to Grzegorz Gajewski at the Polish U18 championship, and finished the year with second behind Mateusz Bartel in the U18 European Championship. In 2004, he won the Polish U20 championship with 8/11, 1.5 points clear of the field, and <then> won the Polish U18 championship with 9.5/11, a point clear of the field.
Wojtaszek came =3rd with 7/10 in the 2001 World U14 championship. He was runner up to Levan Pantsulaia in the World U16 championship in 2002, In 2003, he came =4th with 8/11 at the World U16 Championship in Greece. In 2004, he was 5th in the European U18 championship before winning the 2004 U-18 World Youth Chess Championship In 2005, he was =1st (second on countback) with Ildar Khairullin at the U18 world championship at Belfort.
<Junior> Late in 2002, he was equal first (2nd on tiebreak) with Krzysztof Jakubowski in the Polish U20 championship. In 2004, he won the Polish U20 championship with 8/11, 1.5 points clear of the field and a year later in 2005 he again won the Polish U20 championship. He scored 7.5/13 in the World Junior Championship 2002 and placed 4th in the World Junior Championship 2004 in Cochin, India.
<National> In 2005, he won the powerful Polish Chess Championship in 2005 with 9.5/13, ahead of Bartosz Socko. In 2006, 2009 and 2010, he was second in the Polish Championship. In 2007, he came 4th in the Polish championship. In the 2011 Polish Championship he scored 6/9 to come equal second with Pawel Jaracz behind Mateusz Bartel. He won the Polish Championship 2014.
<Continental> He competed strongly in the European Championship (2005) scoring 8/13. He turned in a 2812 performance at the European Championship (2011) to score 8.5/11 and to place =1st, 2nd on count back, thereby qualifying for the World Cup 2011. He scored 7/10 in the European Championship (2013). In March 2014, he scored 7.5/11 in the European Championship (2014), thereby qualifying for the World Cup in 2015.
<World> At the World Cup (2011), he defeated Armenian GM Arman Pashikian in the first round, but lost to Georgian GM Baadur Jobava in the second round. He qualified for the World Cup (2013) because of his rating, and but in a major shock of the first round, he lost to Brazilian GM Alexandr Hilario Takeda dos Santos Fier and was eliminated from the Cup. At the World Cup (2015), he overcame Babu M R Lalith in the first round to progress to the second where he defeated Vladislav Artemiev. His third round win was against Julio Ernesto Granda Zuniga, earning him a place in the Round of Sixteen (round 4) where he played Anish Giri and, unfortunately for him, lost that match to exit the tournament.
Classical Tournaments:
Wojtaszek’s first serious result in International chess came at the 38th Akiba Rubinstein Open in July 2001, when he scored 7/10, one point behind the joint leaders, although he did well to score 5.5/9 at the Jantar Baltyku Open. Shortly afterwards he took first place with 8/11 at the Prerov 2001 IM tournament in the Czech Republic. In 2002, he finished the year with a strong showing at the Cracovia Open, scoring 6/9, a point behind the joint leaders. In 2004, he came 4th in the Friendship Grandmaster Tournament in the Czech Republic, =3rd in the XIII International Chess Festival Open (B) in Poznan and won the Cracovia Open with 7.5/9. In 2006, he came =1st with Peter Heine Nielsen at the International Open at Kalamaria-Thessaloniki in Greece and =1st with Borki Predojevic and Humpy Koneru at the Young Masters match tournament in Switzerland. In 2008, he was =1st at the Rilton Cup in Sweden, and won the Cracovia Open 2008 with 7.5/9.
In 2009 Wojtaszek was again =1st in the Rilton Cup, =1st at the 66 Final Indywidualnych Mistrzostw Polski Mezczyzn in Poland, shared second with Michael Roiz at the international tournament in Lublin behind Boris Grachev and won the Najdorf Memorial (2009) in Warsaw with 6/9. He also won the Mazovian Chess Festival -Open A in Poland, with 6/9.
In 2010, Wojtaszek was =1st-5th with at the 39th Rilton Cup in Stockholm, won the 5th International Tournament of Polonia Wrocław and won the 4th San Juan International tournament in Pamplona with 6.5/9 on tiebreak from Laurent Fressinet. 2011 saw a modest start by the top-seeded Wojtaskek in the Tata Steel Group B (2011), where he came 8th with 6.5/13. He won the Gyorgy Marx Memorial IX (2011) convincingly with 8/10 and a TPR of 2892. In 2012, he placed =3rd in the category 18 Karpov Poikovsky (2012) behind Dmitry Jakovenko and Ruslan Ponomariov and finished off 2012 with a score of 7.5/11, placing =3rd at the Kolkata Open (2012) and a relatively poor 4.5/10 at the 1st International GM Round Robin Chess Tournament held in New Delhi in late December. His poor form continued at the Tradewise Gibraltar (2013) where his 7/10 lost 10 rating points. He finished 2013 in first place with 6/7 at the Zurich Open in December 2013.
Wojtaszek started 2014 with a win at the Basel Masters tournament in Zurich, followed by =6th with 7/13 at the Tata Steel Challengers (2014). In April 2014 he participated in the inaugural Gashimov Memorial (Group B) (2014), the second tier of a tournament commemorating the late Azeri grandmaster. He scored 4.5/9 and placed 5th. In July he placed 2nd at the Biel (2014).
2015 started with Wojtaszek's participation in the Tata Steel Masters (2015) super-tournament. Although he finished in the lower half of the field with 5.5/13 (+2 -4 =7), his two wins were against the world #1 and #2 players respectively, namely Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana. In July he placed 2nd to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with 6/10 in the category 19 Biel (2015) tournament.
Wojtaszek won Dortmund Sparkassen (2017) over a strong field.
Team events
<Olympiad> At the Turin Olympiad (2006) in Turin, Wojtaszek scored 9/11 as first reserve, with a rating performance of 2756. At the Dresden Olympiad (2008) in Dresden, he scored 7/10 on board 3. Playing top board for Poland in the 39th Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad (2010), "Radek" scored 6/9 with a 2769 performance rating. At the 40th Istanbul Olympiad (2012) held in Istanbul, he won the silver medal for top board with 7.5/10 and a TPR of 2844. He played top board at the Tromso Olympiad (2014), scoring a par-for-rating 5/9.
<European Club Cup> Playing board 2 for the Czech team G-Team Nový Bor, Wojtaszek scored a powerful 5/6 (TPR 2876) to help his team to victory in the European Club Cup (2013), thereby winning both team and individual gold (and returning him to the 2700 club). In European Club Cup (2014), he played top board for the same team, and won individual and team silver.
<National leagues> Wojtaszek played board 3 for SK Schwäbisch Hall in the 2014-15 Bundesliga, his team placing 4th in the 16 team event. He has participated in the Czech Extraliga every year since 2005, apart from 2010. Since he joined the 1. Novoborský ŠK team, he has helped it to win the Extraliga every year from 2011 to 2015 inclusive. In the 2015 Russian Premier League, he played top board for Universitet Belorechensk, winning team and individual silver. In the French Top 12 league of 2015, he played board two for the Mulhouse Philidor club which placed sixth.
Rapids:
Wojtaszek was the European rapid chess champion in December 2008. In February 2013, he scored 10.5/14 to place =1st alongside Vladimir Malakhov at the GM Vladimir Petrov Memorial A tournament and in March 2013, placed 3rd at the 3rd Ferdynanda Dziedzica International Memorial Tournament played in Trzcianka in Poland. He wound up 2014 with a strong showing at the European Blitz Championship, scoring 9/11, a half point from the shared lead.
Rating and ranking:
Wojtaszek entered the world top 100 in July 2006, and has remained in that group continuously since July 2007. He crossed the 2700 rating level in September 2010, jumping from a rating of 2663 to 2711 in the process. His highest rating to date is 2749 on 1 June 2015, when he was ranked #16 in the world. His highest ranking to date was #14 in December 2014 and January 2015 when he was rated 2744.
Sources and references
Live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/; Wikipedia article: Radosław Wojtaszek
Kibitzing
