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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
 Luckily for the chess world, this great lover of poker hasn't lost his love for chess yet. On the contrary, this very talented 24-year-old chess player from Russia may well be one of the dangerous outsiders in this first Grand Prix Series.
Alexander Grischuk was born October 31, 1983 in Moscow, Russia. In the 2000 FIDE World Chess Championship he made it to the semi finals, beating GMs Lima, Smirin, Serper, Ehlvest and Tkachiev. He was eliminated by Alexei Shirov.
His second place at the 2002 Corus Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was an exceptionally good result for a just 20-year-old Grischuk. The next year he finished shared fourth.
In the FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 he made it to the quarter finals, beating Solomon, Kotronias, Filippov and Beliavsky. He then lost 3-1 to Rustam Kasimdzhanov. At the end of that year, Grischuk reached the final of the Russian Championship, where he lost to Kasparov.
In May-June 2007, Grischuk beat Vladimir Malakhov and Sergei Rublevsky in the Candidates Tournament in Elista, advancing to the eight-player FIDE World Chess Championship Tournament in October. There he scored 5.5 out of 14, finishing last.
Grischuk is also known as one of the best blitz chess players in the world. He won the Ordix Rapid Open in Frankfurt twice and in 2006 he won the World Blitz Championship in Rishon LeZion (Israel) with 10.5 points out of 15 games.
Grischuk is married to the Ukrainian WGM Natalia Zhukova. As a chess player he feels at home in very complex positions and has excellent endgame technique. Grischuk may be unrecognizable to some after shaving off his long hair prior to the April 2008 Russian Team Championship in Sochi. There it didn't do him any harm, as he won the Championship with his team Ural Yekaterinenburg.
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