Alexander Morozevich

Alexander Sergeyevich Morozevich (Russian:

Александр Серге́евич Морозе́вич, Alexander Morozevich
romanized: Aleksandr Sergéevich Morozévich; born
July 18, 1977) is a Russian chess player. He was
awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1994.
Morozevich is a two-time World Championship
candidate (2005, 2007), two-time Russian champion
and has represented Russia in seven Chess
Olympiads, winning numerous team and board
medals.

He has won both the Melody Amber (alone 2002,

shared 2004, 2006, 2008) and Biel (2003, 2004, Morozevich in 2008
2006) tournaments several times. Full name Alexander Sergeyevich Morozevich
Country Russia
Morozevich is known for his aggressive and
unusual playing style. His peak ranking was second Born July 18, 1977
in the world in July 2008.[1] Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet
Union
Title Grandmaster (1994)
Career FIDE rating 2656 (https://ratings.fide.com/profil
e/4116992) (February 2025)
His first win in an international tournament was in
Peak rating 2788 (July 2008)
1994, when at the age of 17 he won the Lloyds
Bank tournament in London with a score of 9½ Ranking No. 72 (http://ratings.fide.com/topli
points out of 10. In 1994 he also won the Pamplona st.phtml) (February 2025)
tournament, a victory he repeated in 1998. Peak ranking No. 2 (July 2008)

In 1997 Morozevich was the top seed at the World Junior Chess Championship, but lost to the eventual
champion, American Tal Shaked, in a bishop and knight checkmate. That same year, Morozevich
participated in the FIDE World Championship, where he eliminated former world champion Vassily
Smyslov in the first round. He was knocked out in the second round by Lembit Oll. The next year
Morozevich won the Russian Championship.

In 1999 he played in his first super-tournament in Sarajevo and finished in fourth scoring 5½ points of 9.
In beginning of 2000 Morozevich participated at the Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee and
finished fifth out of 14 players. The event was won by Garry Kasparov ahead of Vladimir Kramnik,
Viswanathan Anand and Peter Leko.

In the same year he participated in the FIDE World Championship played in New Delhi. Due to his rating
he was seeded directly into the second round, in which he eliminated Gilberto Milos with the score of 2–
0, then he proceeded to beat Evgeny Vladimirov 1½–½ in the third round before finally being eliminated
in the fourth by Vladislav Tkachiev.
In Wijk aan Zee 2001 Morozevich became the first player to defeat World Champion Vladimir Kramnik
after beating him with black. He shared fifth together with Alexei Shirov, behind Kasparov, Anand,
Vassily Ivanchuk and Kramnik. In the 2001 FIDE World Championship, Morozevich beat Nugzar
Zeliakov, Krishnan Sasikiran and Mikhail Gurevich before losing in tie-breaks in the fourth round against
the eventual winner of the event Ruslan Ponomariov. In September 2005, Morozevich played in the FIDE
World Chess Championship 2005 in San Luis, Argentina, taking fourth place behind Veselin Topalov,
Anand and Peter Svidler.

In December 2006, he won the strong Pamplona tournament with a score of 6 points out of 7 and an Elo
performance of 2951.[2] He shared second place with Magnus Carlsen, behind Anand, at the 2007 Linares
tournament.

His San Luis result earned him direct entry to the World Chess Championship 2007. In that tournament
he scored 6 out of 14, placing sixth out of eight players. He was the only player who managed to defeat
the reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik (which was also Kramnik's only defeat in 2007).

In December 2007 Morozevich won the Russian Championship for the second time, winning the last six
rounds. In June 2008 Morozevich won the Bosna tournament in Sarajevo with a margin of 1½ points
ahead of second place. Two months later he shared second place in the Tal Memorial after leading the
tournament in early rounds. While officially being fourth in the world, Morozevich unofficially climbed
to the top spot of the world rating list, but fell back to fourth by the end of the tournament.[3]

In June 2011 he won the Russian Championship Higher League in Taganrog with 8/11, earning a spot in
the Superfinal, in which he came second behind the eventual winner Peter Svidler.[4] In October
Morozevich won the Saratov Governor's Cup in Russia with a score 8½/11, one and a half points ahead of
the field, and a performance of 2917.[5]

In February 2012 Morozevich came first in the Vladimir Petrov Memorial, a rapidplay tournament with
the time control of 15 minutes plus 6 seconds per move.[6] In 2014 he won the 15th Karpov International
tournament in Poikovsky.[7] Morozevich won the Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona tournament in 2015 on
tiebreak over Axel Bachmann, having played more games with the black pieces.[8][9]

Team competitions
Morozevich had great successes in team competitions: in the Chess Olympiad he won the gold medal
with the Russian team three times (1998, 2000, 2002), one silver medal (2004) and a bronze medal
(1994).

He also won the gold medal in the World Team Championships in 2005 in which he beat the member of
the Chinese team in the last round in a must win situation. He also won two gold medals in the European
Team Championships (2003 and 2007).

Playing style
Morozevich is known to be an aggressive player with an unorthodox opening repertoire. He has on
occasion played the Chigorin Defense (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6) and the Albin Countergambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5).
He is also well known for preferring complicated positions. Due to his risky and spectacular style which
produces relatively few draws, Morozevich is popular among chess fans.

In 2007, Morozevich published, along with co-author Vladimir Barsky, a book about the Chigorin
Defense, called The Chigorin Defence According to Morozevich.

Blindfold chess
Morozevich is considered to be one of the best blindfold chess players in the world. He has confirmed
that status in blindfold sections of Melody Amber tournaments:

2002 first 9/11, 2003 shared second 7/11, 2004 first 8½/11, 2005 shared second 6/11, 2006 first 9½/11,
2007 shared second 7/11, 2008 shared first 6/11 and in 2009 shared fourth with Anand 6½/11.

Go
While in recent years, Morozevich has not been very active in chess competition, he has taken up Go. He
has a Go ranking of 1 dan[10] as of 2018. In July 2016, he beat Tiger Hillarp Persson in a 4-game mixed
chess and go match.[11]

References
1. "Top 100 Players July 2008 FIDE Top players archive" (http://ratings.fide.com/toparc.phtml?
cod=129). FIDE.com. Retrieved 4 December 2016.
2. "Chess Pamplona 2006" (https://web.archive.org/web/20071021202418/http://www.chesspa
mplona.com/Oberena06/English.html). ChessPamplona.com. Archived from the original (htt
p://www.chesspamplona.com/Oberena06/English.html) on 2007-10-21.
3. Hans Arild Runde (24 August 2008). "Live Top List World Provisional Chess Ratings" (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20140712062057/http://chess.liverating.org/toplist.php?id=2008082
401&track=4116992). chess.liverating.org. Archived from the original (http://chess.liverating.
org/toplist.php?id=2008082401&track=4116992) on 2014-07-12.
4. Crowther, Mark (2011-06-27). "Russian Chess Championships Higher League 2011" (http
s://theweekinchess.com/chessnews/events/russian-chess-championships-higher-league-20
11). The Week in Chess. Retrieved 2019-07-27.
5. Crowther, Mark (2011-10-19). "Governor's Cup Saratov 2011" (https://theweekinchess.com/
chessnews/events/governors-cup-saratov-2011). The Week in Chess. Retrieved
2019-07-27.
6. "Alexander Morozevich winner of Vladimir Petrov Memorial" (http://www.chessdom.com/alex
ander-morozevich-winner-of-vladimir-petrov-memorial). Chessdom.com. 2012-02-19.
Retrieved 19 February 2012.
7. Silver, Albert (2014-05-22). "XV Karpov-Poikovsky: Morozevich takes clear first" (http://en.ch
essbase.com/post/xv-karpov-poikovsky-morozevich-takes-clear-first). ChessBase.com.
Retrieved 2 October 2015.
 8. "Alexander Morozevich Wins Magistral Ciutat de Barcelona" (https://web.archive.org/web/20
151119202923/https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/4-tournaments/9187-alexan
der-morozevich-wins-magistral-ciutat-de-barcelona.html). FIDE.com. 2015-11-11. Archived
from the original (https://www.fide.com/component/content/article/4-tournaments/9187-alexa
nder-morozevich-wins-magistral-ciutat-de-barcelona.html) on 2015-11-19. Retrieved
18 November 2015.
9. Silver, Albert (2015-11-10). "Alexander Morozevich wins Barcelona" (http://en.chessbase.co
m/post/alexander-morozevich-wins-barcelona). ChessBase.com. Retrieved 18 November
2015.
10. "E.G.D. - European Go Database - Main panel" (http://www.europeangodatabase.eu/EGD/P
layer_Card.php?&key=17850327). EuropeanGoDatabase.eu. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
11. Klein, Mike (29 July 2016). "Chess-Go-Chess-Go: Morozevich Beats Tiger In Dizzying
Match" (https://www.chess.com/news/view/chess-go-chess-go-morozevich-beats-tiger-in-diz
zying-match-2272). Chess.com. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20171009144356/htt
ps://www.chess.com/news/view/chess-go-chess-go-morozevich-beats-tiger-in-dizzying-matc
h-2272) from the original on 9 October 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2016.

External links
Alexander Morozevich (https://ratings.fide.com/profile/4116992) rating card at FIDE
Alexander Morozevich (https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/player/Morozevich,%20Alexander)
FIDE rating history at OlimpBase.org
Alexander Morozevich (http://www.olimpbase.org/players/2cs0ak6l.html) Chess Olympiad
record at OlimpBase.org
Alexander Morozevich (https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=11719) player
profile and games at Chessgames.com
Alexander Morozevich (https://www.365chess.com/players/Alexander_Morozevich) chess
games at 365Chess.com
Alexander Morozevich (https://www.chess.com/players/alexander-morozevich) player profile
at Chess.com

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