Evgeniy Yuryevich Najer (russian: Евгений Юревич Наер, translit=Evgeniy Yuryevich Nayer; born 22 June 1977) is a Russian

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...

grandmaster and the European champion of 2015. He is also one of the coaches of the Russian women's national team.

Career

He won the Moscow City Chess Championship in 1998 and 2003. In 2002 he shared the victory of the

U.S. Open Chess Championship The U.S. Open Championship is an open national chess championship that has been held in the United States annually since . History The tournament was originally the championship of the Western Chess Association, and was called the Western Open. I ...

with Gennadi Zaichik. Najer won the

Cappelle-la-Grande Open The Cappelle-la-Grande Open is a chess tournament held every year in Cappelle-la-Grande, France, since 1985. It is usually played in the second half of February with an accelerated Swiss-system format in nine rounds. It is organized by the chess cl ...

of 2004 on tiebreak over

Kaido Külaots Kaido Külaots (born 28 February 1976) is an Estonian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2001. He has won the Estonian Chess Championship in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2020. Külaots has represe ...

, Artyom Timofeev,

Zoltan Gyimesi Zoltán Gyimesi (born 31 March 1977) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster and national champion in 2005. He has participated in four Chess Olympiads (1998, 2002, 2004, 2006) with a record of +11=18-4. In 2002, at the 35th Chess Olympiad, the Hun ...

, Sergey Grigoriants and Oleg Korneev. In the same year he tied for 1st–3rd with

Michael Roiz Michael Roiz (russian: Михаил Владимирович Ройз, translit=Mikhail Vladimirovich Royz, born 12 October 1983 in Russia) is an Israeli chess Grandmaster. He learned to play chess at the age of 7. At 9, he finished 2nd in the n ...

and Leonid Gofshtein in the

Ashdod Ashdod ( he, ''ʾašdōḏ''; ar, أسدود or إسدود ''ʾisdūd'' or '' ʾasdūd'' ; Philistine: 𐤀𐤔𐤃𐤃 *''ʾašdūd'') is the sixth-largest city in Israel. Located in the country's Southern District, it lies on the Mediterran ...

Chess Festival. He won a gold medal at the

2005 Maccabiah Games The 17th Maccabiah Games ( he, המכביה ה-17 ישראל תשס"ה), held in Israel, were an incarnation of the 'Jewish Olympics.' They attracted the largest attendance of any Maccabiah Games, including more than 900 representatives from the Un ...

in Israel. In 2007 he won the 3rd Moscow Open edging out on tiebreak

Vasily Yemelin Vasily Yemelin (born 1 February 1976) is a Russian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1994. Yemelin won the championship of Saint Petersburg three times, in 1993, 2002 and 2011. He participated in two Chess Olympiads, ...

. Najer won the World Open in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

consecutively in 2008 and 2009. He was one of the

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

s of Gata Kamsky in his 2009 match against Veselin Topalov (" Challenger Match"). In July 2009, Najer won the strong

rapid Rapids are sections of a river where the river bed has a relatively steep gradient, causing an increase in water velocity and turbulence. Rapids are hydrological features between a ''run'' (a smoothly flowing part of a stream) and a ''cascade''. ...

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...

, whose field included Boris Gelfand and

Judit Polgar Judit is a feminine given name related to Judith. Notable people with the name include: *Judit Bar-Ilan (1958–2019), Israeli computer scientist *Judit Elek (born 1937), Hungarian film director and screenwriter *Judit Földing-Nagy (born 1965), ...

among others, of the Richard Riordan Chess Festival at the

2009 Maccabiah Games The 18th Maccabiah Games ( he, המכביה ה-18 ישראל תשס"ט), were held in July 2009. According to the organizing committee these were the largest games held yet. These Games were the world's fifth-largest sporting event, behind the Ol ...

. Soon afterwards, in the same month, he tied for first with Robert Fontaine in the

Paleochora Palaiochora ( el, Παλαιόχωρα or Παλιόχωρα) is a small town in Chania regional unit, Greece. It is located 70 km south of Chania, on the southwest coast of Crete and occupies a small peninsula 400 m wide and 700 m long. Th ...

Open Tournament. In 2010, he tied for 2nd–5th with Michael Adams,

Victor Mikhalevski Victor (Viktor) Mikhalevski ( he, ויקטור מיכלבסקי; born 8 July 1972) is an Israeli chess grandmaster who lives in Beersheba. his Elo rating was 2611, making him the #7 player in Israel and the 171st-highest rated player in the ...

and

Jiří Štoček Jiří Štoček (born 10 May 1977) is a Czech chess grandmaster. He won the Czech Chess Championship in 2011. Chess career Born in 1977, Štoček earned his international master (IM) title in 1994 and his grandmaster (GM) title in 1998. He wo ...

the 14th

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Open. In 2015 he won the European Individual Chess Championship in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

with 8½/11. This victory qualified him for the Chess World Cup 2015, where he was eliminated in the first round by

Rauf Mamedov Rauf Mamedov ( az, Rauf Məmmədov; born 26 April 1988) is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster and a three-time national champion. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2015. Career Born in Baku, Mamedov started playing chess a ...

. Najer won the 2016 Aeroflot Open edging out Boris Gelfand on tiebreak, after both scored 6½/9 points; this achievement earned him a spot in the 2016 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting. In 2017, he tied for first place with

Emil Sutovsky Emil Sutovsky (born 19 September 1977) is an Israeli chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster by FIDE in 1996. Sutovsky is the FIDE CEO since 2022. Previously he served as FIDE Director-General (2018-22). He was the ...

in the 18th

Karpov Karpov (russian: Ка́рпов) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Aleksandr Karpov, Soviet ace, double Hero of the Soviet Union * Anatoly Karpov (born 1951), Russian chess grandmaster, Undisputed World Chess Champion 1975� ...

Chess Tournament in Poikovsky, Russia. In 2019, whilst competing at the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019, Najer created a first round upset defeating

Viswanathan Anand Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand (born 11 December 1969) is an Indian chess grandmaster and a former five-time World Chess Champion. He became the first grandmaster from India in 1988, and is one of the few players to have surpassed an Elo rating of ...

in 30 moves, the fourth seeded player in the tournament and former world chess champion.

Personal life

Najer is Jewish. Together with 43 other Russian elite chess players, Najer signed an open letter to Russian president

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

, protesting against the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

and expressing solidarity with the

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

people."'Stop the war.' 44 Top Russian Players Publish Open Letter To Putin"
Chess.com, 3 March 2022

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Najer, Evgeniy 1977 births Living people Chess grandmasters European Chess Champions Russian chess players Jewish chess players National team coaches Russian Jews Sportspeople from Moscow Maccabiah Games medalists in chess Competitors at the 2005 Maccabiah Games Competitors at the 2009 Maccabiah Games Maccabiah Games competitors for Russia Maccabiah Games gold medalists for Russia Chess coaches