FIDE Master (2008); Grandmaster (2009); Dutch Champion (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2023). Married to IM Sopiko Guramishvili.
Giri has been in the world's top 100 since May 2010 and in the top 10 since October 2014.
Preliminary
Anish Giri was born in St Petersburg, Russia to Sanjay Giri, a Nepalese research scientist, and Olga Giri, a Russian civil engineer. Anish is a typical Hindu name used in parts of India and Nepal. He started playing chess at age seven. After a few years in Japan where he was a member of the Japan Chess Association and the Sapporo Chess Club, Giri and his parents and sisters, Natasha and Ayusha, settled in the Netherlands. He won his FM title in 2008, and in the following year, he became the youngest Grandmaster in the world at that time at the age of 14 years 7 months and 2 days. He is one of a small number of players who became Grandmasters without first acquiring the IM title.
He gained his first GM norm by winning the Intomart GfK Open in Hilversum in 2008, his second by scoring 6-3 at Groningen Chess Festival (2009), and his third and final norm by finishing second at the Corus Group C (2009) tournament. Giri's style of play is active, and he has consistently demonstrated a strong work ethic in his continuous participation in tournaments, having played in almost every rating period since he first registered on FIDE's rating system in 2005.
Giri was coached by Vladimir Chuchelov, but is now being coached by Vladimir Tukmakov.
Championships
<Youth> He won the Russian U12 championship in 2006 and placed =3rd in the Russian U14 Championship in 2007. This was followed by outright 3rd in the St.Petersburg U18 Championship of 2007.
<National> Soon after he won his GM title, Giri placed clear first with 6/8 at the Dutch Championship (2009). In June 2010 he placed second to Jan Smeets in the Dutch Championship (2010). He won both the Dutch Championship (2011) and the Dutch Championship (2012) with a round to spare, the latter restoring him to the 2700 club after a mediocre run that coincided with a disastrous showing in the European Championship and finalising his school studies. He also won the Dutch Championship (2015) with 5.5/7, a clear point ahead of Loek van Wely. Giri won the 2023 Championship after a tiebreaking match against J van Foreest vs Giri, 2023.
<Continental> Giri has participated in several European Championship events, but has yet to hit the leader board.
<World> The FIDE Grand Prix London (2012) was the first in the six legs of the 2012-13 Grand Prix series; Giri participated as an AGON nominee but scored only 4/11, accumulating only 15 GP points that accrued to shared 10th and 11th place. Giri's second and third Grand Prix events, namely the FIDE Grand Prix Zug (2013) and the FIDE Grand Prix Beijing (2013), did not produce the desired outcomes, eliminating him from contention for the top 2 needed to qualify for the Candidates via the Grand Prix series.
He qualified to play in the World Cup (2013) as a ratings reservist. He defeated UAR GM A R Saleh Salem in the first round and Chinese GM Chao Li in the second round but was knocked-out in the third round by Julio Ernesto Granda Zuniga of Peru.
Qualifying as the presidential nominee to the 2014-15 Grand Prix series portion of the 2016 World Championship cycle, Giri placed lone 9th at the FIDE Grand Prix Tashkent (2014), winning 40 Grand Prix points. His modest result at the 2nd leg of the series, the FIDE Grand Prix Tbilisi (2015), where he scored 5.5/11 and placed =4th to gain another 75 GP points, put him out of reach of the top 2 finish needed to qualify for the Candidates Tournament in 2016. An identical result in the final leg of the series at FIDE Grand Prix Khanty-Mansiysk (2015) left him well down the ladder.
Giri had another bite of the cherry with his participation in the World Cup (2015), to which he qualified to play by reason of his rating. In the first round he surprisingly drew with 125 seed Ugandan player Arthur Ssegwanyi in the first game of the match before winning the second game to advance to the second round where he defeated Alexander Motylev. He then beat Peter Leko and Radoslaw Wojtaszek in the third round and in the Round of Sixteen (fourth round) respectively. In the quarter final, he defeated Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by 1.5-0.5 to proceed to the semi final where he lost to Peter Svidler by 0.5-1.5 to be eliminated from the tournament. This was not the end of the 2016 World Championship challenge bid by Giri as he won the number two rating spot to qualify for the Candidates Tournament that commences in March 2016.
<Other> Giri assisted Viswanathan Anand in his World Championship title defence against Veselin Topalov in April 2010.
Standard Tournaments
<2005-2007> Giri's initial rating was 2112, which was published in FIDE's July 2005 rating list and immediately established him as a powerful junior player at the age of 11. His rating never fell below that initial level. At present, the first internationally rated event in which he participated in for the July 2005 rating list is not known as it was not published within FIDE's database links in his player card. His second participation in an internationally rated event was when he returned to his home city, St Petersburg, to contest the White Nights Open held in June 2005. There he scored 4/9, a modest enough result to add 10 points to his inaugural rating. A poor showing at the European U12 Championship in September 2005 was the first and last rating dip on his player card for next almost six years until May 2011 when he registered a very slight dip from slightly below rating performance at the Russian Team Championship (2011) in April of that year. He finished 2007 with =3rd at the Chigorin Memorial B Group, held in December.
<2008> The year started with a win in January at the 27th Blokadny St.Petersburg Open, followed in the same month by an 8.5/9 win at the Winter on Petrograd Side 2008 Open. In April, he won the Intomart GfK Open where he gained his first GM norm. In August 2008, he placed 2nd at the GM Tournament Kunsthalle in Austria, a point behind Sarunas Sulskis. He closed out 2008 with =4th at Groningen, half a point behind the 3 co-leaders Arkadij Rotstein, Merab Gagunashvili and Robin Swinkels, winning his 2nd GM norm.
<2009> The year started in excellent fashion for Giri when he came 2nd at the Corus Group C (2009) event behind fellow prodigy Wesley So, to win his 3rd GM norm and the GM title, thereby becoming the youngest grandmaster in the world at that time. In July, he came =2nd behind Erwin L'Ami at the Dutch Open and followed up in September by winning the first of his three Dutch Championships. 2009 finished with a rating neutral =4th at Groningen Chess Festival (2009).
<2010> He started off 2010 with a bang by winning the Corus Group B (2010) tournament, thereby earning an invitation to the A-division of the 2011 event, followed it up in May 2010 by winning the Sigeman & Co (2010) with 4.5/5 and a 2936 performance rating. He scored 3rd in the quadrangular Unive Tournament (2010) in October 2010.
<2011> Giri's debut in the Tata Steel Group A (2011) super tournament was mildly auspicious, finishing in the middle of the table with 6.5/13 (+2 -2 =9) and a 2744 performance rating, defeating Magnus Carlsen and Hao Wang in their individual encounters. He came 3rd with 5/10 in his inaugural Dortmund Sparkassen (2011). In June, he placed =1st at the category 15 Sigeman & Co (2011) with 3/5 alongside Wesley So and Hans Tikkanen. Late in the year, he came second behind Vladimir Kramnik at the 15th Unive (Crown Group) (2011) with 3/6. Giri finished 2011 as the lowest rated entrant in the category 20 Reggio Emilia (2011), and started 2012 by emerging as the outright winner of that tournament with 6/10 (+4 -2 =4, TPR 2822), a half point ahead of Alexander Morozevich, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana.
<2012> His recent gains were undone in his first tournament of 2012, when he placed equal last in the category 21 Tata Steel Group A (2012) with 4.5/13 (+2 -6 =5; TPR 2648). A strong =3rd at the Grandmaster tournament in the Biel Chess Festival (2012) and winning the Dutch Championship (see above) considerably boosted his stock, restoring him to his peak rating.
<2013> The beginning of 2013 saw him play at the category 20 Tata Steel Group A (2013), where he placed =8th, scoring 6/13, followed by =4th with 7.5/10 at the Reykjavik Open (2013), half a point behind the three co-leaders, Pavel Eljanov , Wesley So and Bassem Amin.
<2014> He placed 2nd behind Levon Aronian with 6.5/11 in the category 20 Tata Steel Masters (2014) event, and was the only player who was undefeated in the tournament. He placed =2nd at the Qatar Masters (2014) in November 2014 and in the following month, he was =1st alongside Kramnik at the London Chess Classic (2014). He was 2nd at the London Classic rapid play event with 8.5/10 and =4th at the London Chess Classic 2014 Elite Player Blitz.
<2015> He started 2015 with a strong =2nd at the Tata Steel Masters (2015) with 8.5/13, half a point behind the winner Magnus Carlsen, and behind Vachier-Lagrave on tiebreak to ultimately take 3rd position. After a nondescript result in the category 21 Gashimov Memorial (2015) event held in April, he performed steadily a couple of months later in June to remain undefeated and to place 4th in the category 22 Norway Chess (2015) event with 5.5/9 (+2 =7), inflicting the sole defeat suffered by the tournament leader, Veselin Topalov. November saw Giri placing equal first alongside Wesley So in a low scoring Bilbao Masters (2015), the tie being broken in So's favor with a two-game blitz match. The following month he competed in the powerful London Chess Classic (2015), placing equal first with 5.5/9 alongside Carlsen and Vachier-Lagrave, but placed third in the blitz tiebreakers. Giri wound up 2015 with a slightly above par-for-rating performance at the Qatar Masters (2015), scoring 6/9, a point from the lead.
Team events
<Olympiads> The Khanty-Mansiysk Olympiad (2010) was a successful event for Giri, winning the bronze medal by scoring 8/11 and producing a 2730 performance on board four for the Netherlands. He also represented the Netherlands on board 1 at the Istanbul Olympiad (2012) in Istanbul, scoring 4/7 at rating par. In August 2014, he represented the Netherlands on board 1 at the Tromso Olympiad (2014), winning an individual bronze and leading his team to 12th in the event.
<National Team> He played top board for the Netherlands in the European Team Championship (2011), helping his team to 6th place, at the European Team Championship (2013), with his team placing 11th and for the Netherlands in the World Team Championship (2013), his team placing 6th in this event. He again played top b oard for the Netherlands at the European Team Championship (2015), his team placing 11th.
<Cities> At the end of 2012, he played top board for the Hoogoven team at the World Cities Team Championship (2012), and lead the team to victory in the final, thereby claiming the Sheikh Zayed Cup.
<European Club Cup > Giri first played in the European Club Cup in 2009 when he represented the Dutch team HMC Calder at the European Club Cup (2009), albeit without significant results on that occasion. He skipped the 2010 season and shifted to play board 4 for the ShSM-64 Moscow team in the European Club Cup (2011), helping his team to 5th place in the competition. Staying with his Moscow team for the European Club Cup (2012), he helped it to a bronze medal, placing 6th for board 4. Changing to the SOCAR Baku club for 2013, he was a double medal winner in the European Club Cup (2013), again helping his team to win bronze and picking up silver as a first reserve. He finally struck gold at the European Club Cup (2014) for SOCAR when his team won gold and he won individual gold for board 4. Playing for the same club in the European Club Cup (2015), Giri won team silver.
<National Leagues> Giri started playing in the Dutch League in 2007. The following year, he started playing for SK Turm Emdsdetten in the Bundesliga in 2008, becoming the youngest player at that time to have participated in this powerful league. He also started playing in French leagues in that year, graduating to the top league in France very quickly. In 2011, he started playing in the Spanish League and the Russian Team Championship, in 2012 in the Belgian Interclub competition and in 2014 in the 4NCL.
His results at the Russian Team Championship (2011) playing for the local ShSM-64 Moscow team yielded team gold and individual bronze for board 4. The following year, again playing board 4, Giri helped his team to a bronze at the Russian Team Championship (2012).
<Rising Stars vs Experience> Giri was on the winning Rising Stars team that won the Rising Stars - Experience (2010) in August.
Matches
In May 2010, Giri drew 2-2 (+1 -1 =2) with Nigel Short at the Max Euwe Memorial match held in Amsterdam. Giri played a combined rapid/blitz match against Vasyl Ivanchuk at the 26th Leon Masters 2013. Giri won the 45 minute (G45) 2-game match with 1 win and 1 draw, and then took out the 4-game G20 rapid match with 3 wins and 1 draw. However, he decisively lost the blitz (G5) portion of the match by 2.5-7.5 (+1 -6 =3). Giri was declared the winner of the match as the slower games were given greater weighting than the blitz games. In October 2014, Giri played a 6 game match against Alexey Shirov in the Unive events in Hoogoven, winning by 4.5-1.5 (+3 =3).
Rapid/Blitz events
In August 2013, he was the decisive winner of the Norges Rafisklag Blitz 2013, winning with 11.5/12, 2.5 points clear of 2nd placed Daniil Dubov. He won the Dutch Rapid Championship in 2015 with a round to spare, scoring 6.5/7.
Ratings and Rankings
Giri's highest rating to date was 2797, which also coincided with his peak ranking to date of world #5. He exited the Junior (U20) ranks on 1 January 2015, after being #1 Junior in the world continuously for 24 months from 1 January 2013 until the end of December 2014. He was also #1 Junior for the two months from 1 September 2011 until 31 October 2011, bringing the total period of his dominance of the Junior ranks to 26 months.
Sources and References
The main source of data for non-team events was FIDE's database linked through Giri's player card. Data on team events was predominantly derived from http://www.olimpbase.org/playersc/y....
Giri's official website (English): http://anishgiri.nl/; Giri's official website (Japanese): http://anishgiri.nl/html/jpn/news.h...; live rating: http://www.2700chess.com/' Wikipedia article: Anish Giri
Kibitzing
