Maxim Sergeevich Matlakov (; born 5 March 1991) 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. He won the

European Individual Chess Championship The European Individual Chess Championship is a chess tournament organised by the European Chess Union. It was established in 2000 and has since then taken place on a yearly basis. Apart from determining the European champions (open and women's), ...

in 2017. He acted as a

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 ...

for

Peter Svidler Pyotr Veniaminovich Svidler (russian: Пётр Вениами́нович Сви́длер; born 17 June 1976), commonly known as Peter Svidler, is a Russian chess grandmaster and an eight-time Russian Chess Champion who now frequently commenta ...

in the

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The wi ...

s of 2013, 2014 and

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

. Together with 43 other Russian elite chess players, Matlakov 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.

Chess career

Matlakov won three medals at the

World Youth Chess Championship The World Youth Chess Championship is a FIDE-organized worldwide chess competition for boys and girls under the age of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18. Twelve world champions are crowned every year. Since 2015, the event has been split into "World Cade ...

s: two bronze, in the Under 12 section in 2003 and Under 14 in 2005, and a gold, in the Under 18 in 2009. Also in 2009, he won the Saint Petersburg Chess Championship and the

Aivars Gipslis Aivars Gipslis (February 8, 1937 – April 13, 2000) was a Latvian chess player, writer, and editor, who held the FIDE title of Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster and the ICCF title of Correspondence Chess Grandmaster. Chess biography Born in Ri ...

Memorial. Matlakov won the Russian Junior (U20) Championship of 2011. He tied for second, finishing sixth on tiebreak, at the 13th

in 2012 with a score of 8/11 points and qualified for the

Chess World Cup 2013 The Chess World Cup 2013 was a 128-player single-elimination tournament, single-elimination chess tournament, played between 11 August and 2 September 2013, in the hotel Scandic Hotels, Scandic Tromsø in Tromsø, Norway. It was won by Vladimir Kr ...

. He defeated Dutch GM

Jan Smeets Jan Smeets (born 5 April 1985) is a Dutch chess grandmaster. He is a two-time Dutch Chess Champion. Playing record 2004 was the year that his participation in senior tournaments began to yield encouraging results. He finished in second place i ...

in the first round and was eliminated by Azerbaijani GM

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov Shahriyar Hamid oghlu Mammadyarov ( az, Şəhriyar Həmid oğlu Məmmədyarov; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov , is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. he is ranked No. 1 in Azerbaijan and No. 13 in the world. ...

in the second round tiebreaker. In 2013 Matlakov tied for first in the

Chigorin Memorial The Chigorin Memorial is a chess tournament played in honour of Mikhail Chigorin (1850–1908), founder of the Soviet Chess School and one of the leading players of his day. The first and most important edition was the one played in 1909 in St. Pe ...

in Saint Petersburg, placing third on tiebreak, behind

Pavel Eljanov Pavel Eljanov ( uk, Павло Володимирович Ельянов, translit=Pavlo Volodymyrovych Elyanov; born 10 May 1983) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He has won two team gold medals and one individual silver medal at the Chess Oly ...

and Dmitry Kokarev respectively. In February 2014, he was joint winner with

Alexander Moiseenko Alexander Moiseenko ( uk, Олександр Моісеєнко, ; born 17 May 1980) is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster and the 2013 European champion. He was a member of the gold medal-winning Ukrainian team at the Chess Olympiads of 2004 and 2 ...

of the Moscow Open. In July 2014, he tied for second with

Parimarjan Negi Parimarjan Negi (born 9 February 1993) is an Indian chess grandmaster. He achieved the grandmaster title at the age of 13 years, 4 months, and 20 days, which made him the second youngest grandmaster in history at the time. As of July 2021, he ...

Gawain Jones Gawain Christopher Bernard Jones (born 11 December 1987) is an English chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. He won the British Chess Championship in 2012 and 2017. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2013, 20 ...

and

Maxim Rodshtein Maxim Rodshtein ( he, מקסים רודשטיין, russian: Максим Эдуардович Родштейн, translit=Maksim Eduardovich Rodshtein; born 19 January 1989) is an Israeli chess grandmaster. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 20 ...

at the

Politiken Cup The Xtracon Chess Open (formerly the Politiken Cup) is an international chess tournament and the main feature event of the annual Copenhagen Chess Festival. History Organized by the Copenhagen Chess Federation (KSU), it was originally set up to giv ...

Helsingør Helsingør ( , ; sv, Helsingör), classically known in English as Elsinore ( ), is a city in eastern Denmark. Helsingør Municipality had a population of 62,686 on 1 January 2018. Helsingør and Helsingborg in Sweden together form the northern ...

, placing third on countback. Matlakov won the

blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

event from the tournament. At the

Chess World Cup 2015 The Chess World Cup 2015 was a 128-player single-elimination tournament, single-elimination chess tournament held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from 10 September to 5 October 2015. Sergey Karjakin won the competition on tie-breaks after a four-game final ...

he was knocked out in the first round by

Gadir Guseinov Gadir Guseinov ( az, Qədir Hüseynov; born 21 May 1986) is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. he is ranked as No. 3 in Azerbaijan. Career Born in Moscow, Guseinov started playing chess under the guidance of Shahin Hajiev. He lived in his ...

after losing the first set of

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''. ...

tiebreakers. In April 2017, he finished tied for first with

Nikita Vitiugov Nikita Kirillovich Vitiugov (russian: Никита Кириллович Витюгов; born 4 February 1987) is a Russian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. He was a member of the victorious Russian team at th ...

Étienne Bacrot Étienne Bacrot (; born 22 January 1983) is a French chess grandmaster, and as a child, a chess prodigy. He competed at the Candidates Matches in 2007 and won the Aeroflot Open in 2009. He passed 2700 FIDE rating in 2004 and in January 2005 ...

and

Zdenko Kožul Zdenko Kožul (born 21 May 1966) is a Croatian chess player. He holds the title of grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster and was the 2006 European champion. Chess career Born in the north-western Bosnian town of Bihać (then Socialist Federal Republi ...

in the Grenke Chess Open in

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

, Germany. Matlakov took second place on tiebreak score. In June, he won the European Individual Championship in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

edging out

Baadur Jobava Baadur Jobava ( ka, ბაადურ ჯობავა; born 26 November 1983) is a Georgian chess grandmaster and three-time Georgian champion (2003, 2007, 2012). He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004 and in the FIDE Wor ...

and

Vladimir Fedoseev Vladimir Vasilyevich Fedoseev (russian: Влади́мир Васи́льевич Федосе́ев; born 16 February 1995) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2015, 2017, and 2021. Career Fedoseev tied fo ...

on tiebreak, after all three players scored 8½/11 points.

Team competitions

Matlakov won individual silver medal playing board 5 for Saint Petersburg in the 2013 European Club Cup. Two years later, in the same event he won team bronze medal with St. Petersburg's team "Mednyi Vsadnik". In 2017, Matlakov played for team Russia, which won the silver medal in the

World Team Chess Championship The World Team Chess Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of 10 countries whose chess federations dominate their continent. It is played every two years. In chess, this tournament and the Chess Olympiads ...

Khanty-Mansiysk Khanty-Mansiysk ( rus, Ха́нты-Манси́йск, Khánty-Mansíysk, lit. ''Khanty-Mansi Town''; Khanty language, Khanty: , ''Jomvoćś''; Mansi language, Mansi: , ''Abga'') is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the admini ...

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Matlakov, Maxim 1991 births Living people Chess grandmasters Russian chess players European Chess Champions World Youth Chess Champions Universiade medalists in chess Sportspeople from Saint Petersburg Universiade silver medalists for Russia Medalists at the 2013 Summer Universiade