Max Illingworth (born 5 November 1992) is an Australian former

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 ...

player, and current chess trainer and writer. In 2022 he started playing poker professionally. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

in 2016, becoming the fifth Australian to achieve this. Illingworth won the Steiner Medal (for the Australian Player of the Year) in 2011, 2012 and 2015. His current FIDE rating is 2493. He retired from competitive chess in 2019, to concentrate on coaching and writing.Announcing my Retirement from Competitive Chess
Max Illingworth blog,

chess.com Chess.com is an internet chess server, news website and social networking website. The site has a freemium model in which some features are available for free, and others are available for accounts with subscriptions. Live online chess can be pla ...

, Feb 22 2019

Chess career

Illingworth started playing competitive chess at the age of nine. He played for team Australia in the 2007 World Youth U16 Olympiad. In the same year he competed for the first time in the Oceania zonal championship, which was held in

Nadi Nadi (pronounced ) is the third-largest conurbation in Fiji. It is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, and had a population of 42,284 at the most recent census, in 2007. A 2012 estimate showed that the population had ...

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

. His result in this tournament gained him a direct award of the title Candidate Master by

. Illingworth scored 6/9 points to finish in a tie for third at the 2009

Commonwealth Chess Championship The Commonwealth Chess Championship is a gathering of chess players from Commonwealth countries. Winners : History A championship was planned for New Zealand in 1949, but it was canceled because the British Chess Federation was unable to attend ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. The next year, he was awarded the title of

FIDE Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating an ...

. Illingworth won the First Saturday GM tournament of September 2011 on tiebreak from Levente Vajda scoring 7/9. Thanks to this result he achieved his first

norm Naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) consist of materials, usually industrial wastes or by-products enriched with radioactive elements found in the envir ...

for the title of Grandmaster. He scored 7/10 for Australia at the

2012 Chess Olympiad The 40th Chess Olympiad ( tr, 40. Satranç Olimpiyatı), organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place in Istan ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

.Max Illingworth
team chess record at Olimpbase.org These results earned him the title of

International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

, which FIDE awarded him in the congress held during the Olympiad, and established him as one of Australia's strongest chess players. Illingworth won the MCC Cup Weekender 2012 with a score of 8½/9 points. He has also won the New South Wales State Championship for three consecutive years (2011–13) and tied for first place in the 2011 and 2013 NSW Open. In 2013, Illingworth tied for second place in the Australian Open with a score of 8½/11 points and in the 10th IGB

Dato' Arthur Tan Dato' Tan Chin Nam (; 18 March 1926 – 21 October 2018) was a Malaysian entrepreneur and developer. His family is the majority shareholder of IGB Corporation Berhad. Tan was reportedly one of the richest men in Malaysia and had several compan ...

Malaysian Open with a score of 7/9. Illingworth won the 2014

Australian Chess Championship The Australian Chess Championship is a tournament organised by the Australian Chess Federation and held every two years. The tournament is largely restricted to Australian chess players, although it is common to allow a small number of strong overse ...

in Springvale, Victoria with a score of 8/11. He scored 6½/9 for Australia at the

2014 Chess Olympiad The 41st Chess Olympiad ( no, Den 41. Sjakkolympiade), organised by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place in ...

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

. The next month, he achieved his second grandmaster norm at the First Saturday GM tournament of September 2014, where he took first place. Strong domestic results include winning the 2014 MCC Hjorth Open with a score of 9/9 and shared second place with

Murtas Kazhgaleyev Murtas Kazhgaleyev ( kk, Мұртас Мұратұлы Қажығалиев, Mūrtas Mūratūly Qajyğaliev; born 17 November 1973) is a Kazakhstani chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1998. In 2004, he tied for firs ...

in the 2015 Australian Open. Illingworth won the 2015 Oceania zonal championship after a playoff match against Brodie McClymont. As a result, he qualified to play in the

FIDE World Cup The FIDE World Cup refers to three different events over the years. Since 2000, it has been a major chess event organized by FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Since 2005, it has been a 128-player single-elimination chess tournament, formi ...

. In January 2017 Illingworth won the Australian Open Championship in Brisbane. He won the Oceania zonal again in 2019, held in

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

. Illingworth is a contributor to the Australian chess magazine ''50 Moves'' and the '' New In Chess'' Yearbook. He also writes surveys for the ChessBase Magazine as well as opening articles for ChessPublishing. Illingworth is a professional chess coach, who has worked with several of Australia's most promising junior players. He was awarded the title of FIDE Trainer in 2014. Illingworth retired from competitive chess in 2019, to concentrate on coaching and writing.

References

External links

* * * *
Ozbase - Australian Chess Games Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Illingworth, Max 1992 births Living people Australian chess players Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Sydney