 Morozevich in 2008 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Full name | Alexander Sergeyevich Morozevich |
| Born | (1977-07-18)July 18, 1977 (age 48) Moscow,Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Chess career | |
| Country | Russia |
| Title | Grandmaster (1994) |
| FIDE rating | 2650 (November 2025) |
| Peak rating | 2788 (July 2008) |
| Ranking | No. 69 (November 2025) |
| Peak ranking | No. 2 (July 2008) |
Alexander Sergeyevich Morozevich (Russian:Александр Серге́евич Морозе́вич,romanized: Aleksandr Sergéevich Morozévich; born July 18, 1977) is a Russianchess player. He was awarded the title ofGrandmaster byFIDE in 1994. Morozevich is a two-timeWorld Championship candidate (2005, 2007), two-time Russian champion and has represented Russia in seven Chess Olympiads, winning numerous team and board medals.
He has won both the Melody Amber (alone 2002, shared 2004, 2006, 2008) and Biel (2003, 2004, 2006) tournaments several times.
Morozevich is known for his aggressive and unusual playing style. His peak ranking was second in the world in July 2008.[1]
His first win in an international tournament was in 1994, when at the age of 17 he won theLloyds Bank tournament in London with a score of 9½ points out of 10. In 1994 he also won thePamplona tournament, a victory he repeated in 1998.
In 1997 Morozevich was the top seed at theWorld Junior Chess Championship, but lost to the eventual champion, AmericanTal Shaked, in abishop and knight checkmate. That same year, Morozevich participated in theFIDE World Championship, where he eliminated former world championVassily Smyslov in the first round. He was knocked out in the second round byLembit Oll. The next year Morozevich won theRussian Championship.
In 1999 he played in his first super-tournament inSarajevo and finished in fourth scoring 5½ points of 9. In beginning of 2000 Morozevich participated at theCorus chess tournament inWijk aan Zee and finished fifth out of 14 players. The event was won byGarry Kasparov ahead ofVladimir Kramnik,Viswanathan Anand andPeter Leko.
In the same year he participated in theFIDE World Championship played in New Delhi. Due to his rating he was seeded directly into the second round, in which he eliminatedGilberto Milos with the score of 2–0, then he proceeded to beatEvgeny Vladimirov 1½–½ in the third round before finally being eliminated in the fourth byVladislav Tkachiev.
In Wijk aan Zee 2001 Morozevich became the first player to defeat World Champion Vladimir Kramnik after beating him with black. He shared fifth together withAlexei Shirov, behind Kasparov, Anand,Vassily Ivanchuk and Kramnik. In the2001 FIDE World Championship, Morozevich beat Nugzar Zeliakov,Krishnan Sasikiran andMikhail Gurevich before losing in tie-breaks in the fourth round against the eventual winner of the eventRuslan Ponomariov. In September 2005, Morozevich played in theFIDE World Chess Championship 2005 inSan Luis, Argentina, taking fourth place behindVeselin Topalov, Anand andPeter Svidler.
In December 2006, he won the strongPamplona tournament with a score of 6 points out of 7 and an Elo performance of 2951.[2] He shared second place withMagnus Carlsen, behind Anand, at the 2007Linares tournament.
His San Luis result earned him direct entry to theWorld Chess Championship 2007. In that tournament he scored 6 out of 14, placing sixth out of eight players. He was the only player who managed to defeat the reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik (which was also Kramnik's only defeat in 2007).
In December 2007 Morozevich won the Russian Championship for the second time, winning the last six rounds. In June 2008 Morozevich won the Bosna tournament in Sarajevo with a margin of 1½ points ahead of second place. Two months later he shared second place in theTal Memorial after leading the tournament in early rounds. While officially being fourth in the world, Morozevich unofficially climbed to the top spot of the world rating list, but fell back to fourth by the end of the tournament.[3]
In June 2011 he won the Russian Championship Higher League inTaganrog with 8/11, earning a spot in theSuperfinal, in which he came second behind the eventual winner Peter Svidler.[4] In October Morozevich won theSaratov Governor's Cup in Russia with a score 8½/11, one and a half points ahead of the field, and a performance of 2917.[5]
In February 2012 Morozevich came first in theVladimir Petrov Memorial, arapidplay tournament with the time control of 15 minutes plus 6 seconds per move.[6] In 2014 he won the 15thKarpov International tournament in Poikovsky.[7] Morozevich won theMagistral Ciutat deBarcelona tournament in 2015 on tiebreak overAxel Bachmann, having played more games with the black pieces.[8][9]
Morozevich had great successes in team competitions: in theChess Olympiad he won the gold medal with the Russian team three times (1998, 2000, 2002), one silver medal (2004) and a bronze medal (1994).
He also won the gold medal in theWorld Team Championships in 2005 in which he beat the member of the Chinese team in the last round in a must win situation. He also won two gold medals in theEuropean Team Championships (2003 and 2007).
Morozevich is known to be an aggressive player with an unorthodox opening repertoire. He has on occasion played theChigorin Defense (1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6) and theAlbin Countergambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5). He is also well known for preferring complicated positions. Due to his risky and spectacular style which produces relatively few draws, Morozevich is popular among chess fans.
In 2007, Morozevich published, along with co-author Vladimir Barsky, a book about theChigorin Defense, calledThe Chigorin Defence According to Morozevich.
Morozevich is considered to be one of the bestblindfold chess players in the world. He has confirmed that status in blindfold sections ofMelody Amber tournaments:
| Year | Placement | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | First | 9/11 |
| 2003 | Shared second | 7/11 |
| 2004 | First | 8½/11 |
| 2005 | Shared second | 6/11 |
| 2006 | First | 9½/11 |
| 2007 | Shared second | 7/11 |
| 2008 | Shared first | 6/11 |
| 2009 | Shared fourth (with Anand) | 6½/11 |
While in recent years, Morozevich has not been very active in chess competition, he has taken up Go. He has aGo ranking of 1dan[10] as of 2018. In July 2016, he beatTiger Hillarp Persson in a 4-game mixed chess and go match.[11]
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Russian Chess Champion 1998 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Russian Chess Champion 2007 | Succeeded by |
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| National | |
| Other | |