Vassily Ivanchuk
Василь Михайлович Іванчук (Ukrainian )
Vasyl Ivanchuk (Ukrainian Василь Михайлович Іванчук, scientific transliteration Vasyl ' Mychajlovyč Ivančuk, FIDE - Title Vassily Ivanchuk, born March 18, 1969 in Berezhany ) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. In 2004 he became European Champion and 2001/2002 Vice World Champion of the World Chess Federation FIDE. He is also a four-time Olympic champion team.
Life and achievements
Ivanchuk, whose father is a lawyer and mother physics teacher, learned to play chess at age six by his aunt. In 1985, he won the Soviet Junior Championship and was third in the Ukrainian championship. He qualified to participate in the Youth World Cup in Sharjah.
He won numerous international tournaments. In the early 1990s he was with Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov (both Russia) one of the best and most successful players in the world. With the crew of the Soviet Union, he was in 1988 and 1990 winner of the Chess Olympiad. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was with the team from Ukraine first world champion in 2000 in the Armenian capital Yerevan, and, finally, Olympic champion in 2004 in Calvia (Mallorca). With the Ukrainian national team he won also three times ( before 2004 ) a medal place at different chess Olympiads.
Specifically, Ivanchuk won three times (1989, 1991 and 1995), the super-tournament in Linares (Spain ), which can be described as the Wimbledon of chess. Other major tournament victories he achieved in Biel / Bienne ( 1989), Tilburg (1990 ), Reykjavik (1991 ), Dortmund (1992 ), Munich ( 1994), Novgorod (1994 ), Horgen (1995), Wijk aan Zee (1996 ) Belgrade ( 1997), Elista (1998), Lviv and Montecatini Terme ( 2000). In 2002, he lost in the FIDE World Chess Championship 2001/2002 the final against Ruslan Ponomariov 2.5 to 4.5. He had previously turned off in the semifinals defending champion Viswanathan Anand. In 2004, he won the European Championship in Antalya. Also noteworthy is his victory in the Capablanca Memorial in Havana in May 2005, which he won with 9.5 points from twelve games. His lead over second-placed, Lázaro Bruzón from Cuba, was 2.5 points. Since 2005, Ivanchuk plays for the SC Remagen, the rise in the chess Bundesliga 2006.
In January 2006, Ivanchuk won points with former world champions Anatoly Karpov and Rustam Kasimjanov the Keres Memorial Tournament in rapid chess in Tallinn and finished the tournament in Wijk aan Zee to split with Michael Adams in third place behind the former world champion Veselin Topalov and Vice World Champion Viswanathan Anand. In December 2006, Ivanchuk won the Carlos Torre Memorial in Mérida in the final against Lázaro Bruzón. In June 2007 he was at the Aerosvit tournament in the category 18 ( average Elo 2693 ) in Foros (southern Crimea) successfully. The following month, he won clearly the grandmaster tournament in Montreal with seven points from nine matches, one point ahead Sergey Tiviakov and 1.5 points ahead of Pentala Harikrishna. In November, Ivanchuk was in Moscow with 25.5 points out of 38 games flash chess world champion, against Viswanathan Anand and defending champion Alexander Grishchuk.
In the M- Tel Masters in Sofia in 2008, a double round tournament of the category 20 ( average Elo 2737 ), Ivanchuk won all the games of the first round against his five opponents and won in the end with eight points from ten games against Veselin Topalov (6.5 / 10). In August, he won the Tal Memorial in Moscow ( 6/9) and the subsequent Blitz ( 23.5 / 34). At the Chess Olympiad in Dresden in 2008, he left for a lost game quickly the game room and escaped by a doping test. On 21 January 2009, FIDE decided after a hearing, that a procedural error made available to and Ivanchuk did not understand the request. Therefore, no barrier against him was imposed.
In March 2009, he shared undefeated first place in the Grand Slam tournament in Linares with Alexander Grischuk, who was declared the winner because of the higher number of wins after a direct comparison were two draws to book. In August 2009, Ivanchuk won with 8.5 points from 13 games, the fifth FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Jermuk. In October 2010, he was with Ukraine winner of the Chess Olympiad 2010 in Khanty-Mansiysk. In addition, he was honored with eight points from ten games and an Elo performance of 2890 as the best player on the first board.
It's not just his sporting results, but also his creative achievements and original ideas on the chess board, the reasons for its reputation as a " chess genius ". Some experts certify him a deeper understanding of chess than Kasparov. However, his career is marked by highs and lows. In critical situations, often had his nervousness negative impact, for example in the candidate competition in 1991 against Artur Yusupov.
Game example
One of his most famous roles played Ivanchuk in the third round of the Hoogovens tournament in 1996 against Alexei Shirov.
Ivanchuk - Shirov
1 d2 -d4 d7 -d5 2 c4 c2 - c7 - c6 3 Nb1 - c3 - f6 Ng8 4 Sg1 -f3 e7 - e6 - g5 5 Lc1 d5xc4 6 e2 -e4 b5 b7 - 7 e4 h7 - h6 e5 8 Bg5 - h4 g7- g5 9 Sf3xg5 h6xg5 10 Lh4xg5 Sb8 - d7 11 e5xf6 Bc8 - b7 12 g2 g3 c6 - c5 13 d4 -d5 Qd8 - b6 14 Lf1 - g2 0 -0-0 15 0-0 b5- b4 16 Nc3 -a4 had this position of the Botvinnik variation of the semi-Slav defense (ECO code D44 ), the two opponents already in the tournament of Novgorod in 1994 on the board, then Shirov played 16 Da6 .... 16 ... Qb6 - b5 - 17 a2 a3 e6xd5 18 a3xb4 c5xb4 19 Bg5 -e3 Sd7 c5 20 Dd1 - g4 Rd8 - d7 The train was 20 ... Kb8 of Chandler played against Agsamow in Belgrade in 1982 and is due to the response 21 Dd4 as not good. After Shirov played by train leads 21.Sxc5 Lxc5 22.Lxc5 Dxc5 to a position with mutual chances. 21 dG4 - g7 A queen sacrifice in the long run. It has been designated by the chess magazine New In Chess as the most spectacular train, they have published within 25 years. 21 ... 22 Lf8xg7 f6xg7 Th8 - g8 23 Sa4xc5 d5 -d4 is better instead 23 ... Tc7 24 Lg2xb7 Td7xb7 25 Sc5xb7 Db5 - b6 Even after 25 ... a5 27 Kxb7 26.Lxd4. DIS 1 White is better 26 Le3xd4 Db6xd4 27 Tf1 -d1 - d6 Dd4xb2 28 Sb7 KC8 - b8 29 Td1 -b1 Dd4xg7 30 Tb1xb4 Kb8 c7 - 31 Ta1 - a6 Rg8 - b8 32 Ta6xa7 White stands for profit. With 32.Tb7 Txb7 33.Se8 Kb8 34.Sxg7 c3 he would have been able to lose. 32 ... 33 Kc7xd6 Tb4xb8 Dg7 - g4 34 Rb8 -d8 KC6 35th TA7 -a1 1-0 Black resigned.
Private
Vasyl Ivanchuk was from 1991 married to living in Kazan Russian chess grandmaster Alissa Galljamowa, of which he is now divorced, and is the father of a son born in 1991. He lives in the Ukrainian city of Lviv ( Lemberg).