Alexander Ivanov (born May 1, 1956) is a Soviet-born American

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 dist ...

grandmaster. Born in

Omsk Omsk (; rus, Омск, p=omsk) is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia, and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk ...

, present-day Russia, he moved to the United States in 1988.

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 ...

awarded him his Grandmaster title in 1991. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, fellow chess player and Woman International Master Esther Epstein. Ivanov has competed in four

FIDE World Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013. The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...

s (

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

and

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

) and four FIDE World Cups (

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris (dwarf planet), Er ...

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto ...

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

and 2011). Ivanov played twice on the Soviet team in the World U26 Team Championship, winning the team Silver medal in 1978 and an individual Gold and team Gold in 1980. He then played for the US team in the 2002 Chess Olympiad. In an USCF tournament in early 2021, despite joining late and missing the first round, Ivanov tied third place with grandmaster Gadir Guseinov. Besides chess, Ivanov has also been known to have a keen interest in programming.

Stats

ELO Classic: 2464 ELO Rapid: 1739 ELO Blitz: 2497

Most played openings with white pieces

# Robatsch (Modern) Defense # Ruy Lopez, closed, 9.h3 # Queen's Indian, 4.g3 # Queen's Indian Defense

Most played openings with black pieces

# Sicilian, Najdorf, Fianchetto Variation # Sicilian, Scheveningen Variation # Caro-Kann Defense # Sicilian Defense

Notable victories

In 2011, Ivanov defeated

Varuzhan Akobian Varuzhan Akobian ( hy, Վարուժան Հակոբյան, born 19 November 1983 in Yerevan, Soviet Union) is an Armenian-born American chess Grandmaster. Originally from Armenia, he now resides in St. Louis. He played on the bronze-medal-winn ...

and Daniel Naroditsky in the US Championship. In 1988, Ivanov won against IBM’s Deep Thought in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

Notable placings

Ivanov won first at the 1980 Young Masters Championship of the USSR. He also tied for first with Anatoly Karpov and Boris Gulko at a 1982 Moscow tournament that featured 51 grandmasters. In addition, he shared first place in the 1989 National Open and World Open events. He was joint US champion in 1995 (with

Nick de Firmian Nicholas Ernest de Firmian (born July 26, 1957) is an American chess player who received the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM) in 1985. He is a three-time U.S. chess champion, winning in 1987 (with Joel Benjamin), 1995, and 1998. He also tied fo ...

and

Patrick Wolff Patrick Gideon Wolff (born February 15, 1968) is an American chess Grandmaster. He is the son of philosopher Robert Paul Wolff and brother of law professor Tobias Barrington Wolff. Wolff won the United States Chess Championship in 1992 and 1995 ...

), and Pan American champion in 1998. In 2007 he tied for first place with Julio Granda,

, Darcy Lima and Eduardo Iturrizaga in the American Continental Championship in

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,227,642 residents according to the 2018 census. The city spans with of urban area, making Cali the secon ...

. He also won the 135th Annual New York State Championship in 2013, winning $1,500.

References

External links

* * * * * 1956 births Living people Chess grandmasters Soviet chess players American chess players Chess Olympiad competitors Sportspeople from Omsk {{Russia-chess-bio-stub