Alexander Grischuk is one of the most important chess players at the top level now, and one of the most interesting as well. Today we are so focused on the new promises like Nihal Sarin, Firouzja, and others that we forget about players like this.
Alexander Grischuk was also a chess prodigy of his time, and one with the most impressive progress charts in the world. As at age 16 or 17, Alexander was already a solid part of the chess elite, among the best of the best.
We could also mention that he is a professional poker player as well, Alexander Grischuk excels at poker as he does in chess. And you sure can notice his poker face when he is playing chess!
Incredibly, not many players know much about how excellent of a player this is. This is the reason why today we will go over his most important achievements as a chess player and some of his games. Alexander Grischuk has been part of the chess elite since he was 16 years old back in 200, and still, he is today.
Pay close attention, as you are about to meet one of the best chess players in history.
Table of Contents
Important achievements of Alexander Grischuk
Since Alexander was a kid was very good at chess, he won the U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 categories in Russia’s championships with extreme ease. That is exactly what got in the FM title when he was 14, and also the opportunity to play in Absolute Russia’s championships.
A tournament that was held in 1998 and where he faced several grandmasters from Russia but managed to get 5/10 points. That same year he earned his IM title from FIDE, which started to call the attention to Alexander Grischuk.
A 14-year-old boy obtaining an IM title (or ever GM title) today is probably not that surprising, but back in 1998 sure, it was surprising!
That’s when Alexander Grischuk started to play very tough tournaments and face world-class opponents like Garry Kasparov. In 2000 Grischuk was just 16 years old, and he was already on the top 100 best players according to FIDE.
That is a merit that is still held today, as he is one of the best players of the world that is still active. Being only 16 years, getting an ELO performance of 2700 or 2800 was a normal thing to Alexander Grischuk.
That’s how he escalated positions until 2006 when he won the World Blitz Chess tournament by FIDE. That year he became the world blitz chess champion, a title that he would hold with pride to 2019.
Alexander Grischuk is one of the only two players in the world that have been world blitz chess champions more than twice. The other player is the current world chess champion in Classic and rapid Magnus Carlsen.
Alexander Grischuk’s playstyle
One important thing to know is that Alexander Grischuk is a specialist in blitz chess, which got him the title. Of course, classic chess and blitz chess are completely different things and is interesting to see how Grischuk plays it.
As it is to expect from a grandmaster like this, he is a complete aggressive player, always looking for tactics. If there is something he is good at is at setting traps for his opponents.
One player can sort out one or two traps, but when you play Alexander Grischuk they are everywhere! This could result overwhelming in some cases, and combining this factor with the pressure, sure is something.
Tactically, is very difficult to best Alexander Grischuk, and he is excellent and elaborates tactics quickly. He will do anything to win a tempo from you so he can start creating serious tactical threats.
So, if we need to describe Alexander’s playstyle that has to be completely and utterly tactical and aggressive. Although, he will play quietly and positional if the position requires so.
The most interesting games of Alexander Grischuk
Let’s see how tricky the GM Alexander Grischuk can be against GM Ruslan Ponomariov, this is a blitz game.
Now, here we have a game Alexander Grischuk against the GM Serguei Rublevsky, also one of the top GMs in the world.
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