Vasyl Ivanchuk
- November 25, 2025
Finalist of the FIDE World Championship Knockout 2002
Highest FIDE Elo Rating: 2787
Ranking: World number two
Tournament Career: Winner of 22 super-tournaments:
4-time winner of the Linares Chess Tournament
Winner of Tata Steel Masters 1996, Dortmund Chess Meeting 1992 (worse tiebreak), Tal Memorial 2008
and many others…
Chess Olympiads: For the USSR: two team gold medals, one individual bronze
For Ukraine: two gold, one silver, and three bronze team medals, one gold, silver, and bronze individual medal
What earned him this:
The legendary Vasyl Ivanchuk is a living legend and a player who could defeat anyone. From the late eighties until 2010, he was a member of the world top ten, reaching as high as second. His creative style earned him many successes, including titles from Linares, Wijk aan Zee, Dortmund, and the Tal Memorial. When in form, he was one of the few capable of defeating Kasparov, which he managed at one of the very strong tournaments in Linares in 1991, where he not only defeated the world champion but also won the tournament.
Ivanchuk also collected successes at chess Olympiads, and it was generally expected that he would challenge for the world champion title. However, his weaker nervous system played a role here. When it mattered most, he was often mentally weaker than some of his colleagues. He undoubtedly also suffered from the fact that his best period coincided with the chess schism, when there were two world champion titles, and for example, he could not participate in the classical world championship due to a contract with FIDE. At the 2002 FIDE World Championship played in a knockout system, he reached the final and was expected to win as he was the clear favorite against Ponomariov. However, his weaker nerves showed again, as despite the paper predictions, he lost the final.
Ivanchuk is still very popular in the chess world today. His somewhat eccentric but peaceful nature is well-known, and it would be hard to find someone who lives and breathes chess as much as this legend.
Best Games:
Vasyl Ivanchuk vs Garry Kasparov
Linares 1991
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.