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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
 Nicknamed "Chuky", Ivanchuk is one of those players who's been among the world elite for as long as we can remember. He also belongs to the list of strongest chess players of all time never to become World Champion - so far, that is, as many chess fans still hope to see the former number two in the world winning the highest title one day.
Ivanchuk was born March 18, 1969 in Berezhany, Ukraine. He first achieved international notice by winning the 1988 New York Open. In the same year he was awarded the Grandmaster title, after he tied for first place in the World Junior Chess Championship at Adelaide, but lost the title on tiebreak to Joel Lautier.
Ivanchuk reached world fame at the age of 19 when he won the 1989 Linares tournament before former world champion Anatoly Karpov. He managed to improve on this success in 1991, when he finished clear first again, this time before World Champion Garry Kasparov, whom he defeated in their individual game. Other major tournament victories by Ivanchuk include Corus 1996 and Linares 1995.
Ivanchuk lost to his compatriot Ruslan Ponomariov in the final match of the 2002 FIDE World Chess Championship. In 2004 he won the European Championship, and right afterwards he played board one on the victorious Ukraine team at the 2004 Calvia Chess Olympiad.
In 2005 Ivanchuk won the Canadian Open Chess Championship and in November 2007, Ivanchuk won the World Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow beating classical chess World Champion Anand in the last, decisive game.
2007 was Chuky's golden year, in which he won almost every event he took part in, such as the Torre memorial in Mexico, the Havana International in Cuba, Aerosvit (Ukraine) and the Montreal International.
If you are a Lviv citizen, you're lucky to spot Ivanchuk there, as he's is one of the most active players in the circuit and most of the year he'll playing a tournament somewhere. Chucky is a nice, intelligent and slightly eccentric character, with many hobbies besides his great love: the game of chess. Ivanchuk's immense talent makes it possible to play almost every opening possible on the chess board, which makes it very hard to prepare for him. His biggest obstacle is his nerves; he's known to sometimes make big blunders in complicated positions.
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