Zigurds Lanka

Zigurds Lanka ( born May 21, 1960 in Baldone ) is a Latvian chess player and coach. Among his chess students include Falko Bindrich, Alexei Shirov, Evgenia Shmirina and Maria Beautiful.

Lanka was already active during his school days in Baldone. In 1975 and 1976 he was Latvian Junior Champion, 1978 Third of Soviet youth championship. From 1978 to 1983 he completed a journalism graduate study at the University of Latvia. Until 1987, he wrote as editor for the chess magazine SAHS / Шахматы. Between 1988 and 1990 he trained to become a chess trainer in Moscow.

1993 won Lanka in Riga, the Latvian Individual Championship. With the Latvian national team, he participated in three Chess Olympiads: 1992 in Manila, in 1994 in Moscow and 2008 in Dresden with a total score of 16.5 points out of 30 games ( 9 = 15, -6 ). He also played in the team's World Cup in Lucerne in 1993 and the team's European Championships 1992, 1997 and 1999 in Batumi. In 2009 he was Master of the Chess Federation of Rhineland- Palatinate, in 2010 he was equally successful.

Chess club he played in Soviet, German ( for PSV Dresden, Dresdner SC and the TSV Schott Mainz), Croatian, Austrian (for the SK Mayrhofen / Zillertal ), French and Czech ( for BSS Frýdek- Místek ) team championships. The title of International Master in 1987 he received, he is since 1992 grandmasters.

His current Elo rating is 2468 (as of January 2011), so it is on the fifth place in the Latvian Elo ranking. He had his highest Elo rating of 2575 in January 1997; he was then behind Edvīns Kengis Second Latvian rankings.