Vassily Ivanchuk

International Grand Master - Ukraine.
Vasili Ivanchuk (born March 18, 1969 in Berezhany, Ukraine) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster and a former World Rapid Chess Champion.
A leading player since 1988, Ivanchuk was ranked No. 2 three times (July 1991, July 1992, October 2007) in the Elo list of the FIDE.

In May of 2013 he obtained an Elo of 2755, reaching the 12th place among the chess players of the world.

Ivanchuk jumped to the international arena during the World Junior Championships of 1986 (in which he was proclaimed champion) and 1987 (in which he was second classified, half a point behind Boris Gélfand).

Two years later, in 1989, he was proclaimed winner of the Linares Tournament, ahead of Anatoli Kárpov and Ljubomir Ljubojević, among others. In 1991 he won again in Linares in the edition in which this tournament reached the category 17, the highest up to that moment that any tournament had had.
In it he beat convincingly Garry Kasparov and, by his meteoric career, he was seen as the successor of the Kasparov-Kárpov duels of the eighties and possible World Champion.

In 2004, he won the Individual European Chess Championship, held in Antalya, Turkey, ahead of Predrag Nikolić and Levon Aronian.

However, the reality is that he has not yet managed to proclaim himself world champion, nor has he led the world ranking of the International Chess Federation. Ivanchuk has come to be recognized as the second strongest player in the world, with a maximum Elo score of 2787.

Analysts consider, in general, that the main reason why the brilliant brilliance of Ivanchuk has not been crowned with the title are the nerves of the Ukrainian player. Indeed, as we saw in 2002, Ivanchuk lost to Ruslan Ponomariov in the final match of the FIDE World Chess Championship, making serious mistakes in positions that would have made him winner.

In 2016 he was proclaimed, at the end, World Champion of Fast Chess in the World Cup held in Doha.

Vasili Ivanchuk receives in certain amateur circles and chess professionals the qualification of genius for the depth of his ideas, his mastery of absolutely all parts of the game and his vast knowledge of theory of openings, which is considered unparalleled within the world of chess, except for one or two more players. [citation needed]

The versatility of Ivanchuk and his wealth of ideas makes him a completely unpredictable player for his rivals; of him said Kasparov:
Ivanchuk can play on certain occasions as if he had 2800 Elo and on other occasions as if he had 2600 Elo.

He has a huge hook among the fans, being together with Anand one of the most beloved chess players. In Andalusia he is especially wanted for his brilliant performances in the Linares tournament, which in addition to the mentioned occasions of 1989 and 1991, won again in 1995.

Ivanchuk has played in León three times: he won the Master of 2008 by defeating Vishy Anand, lost in the 2009 editions to world champion Magnus Carlsen, and in the 2013 edition he lost to Anish Giri.

In this edition of 2021 we will again enjoy Ivanchuk in León, where this mythical player will face very young masters, who will want to defeat the legend of chess, as Jaime Santos did, recently at the Gibraltar Open.