Evgeniy Najer

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Yuryevich and the family name is Najer.
Evgeniy Najer
Full nameEvgeniy Yuryevich Najer
CountryRussia (until 2023)
FIDE (since 2023)
Born (1977-06-22) 22 June 1977 (age 47)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
TitleGrandmaster (1999)
FIDE rating2637 (December 2024)
Peak rating2707 (August 2017)
Peak rankingNo. 27 (July 2006)

Evgeniy Yuryevich Najer (Russian: Евгений Юревич Наер, romanized: Evgeniy Yuryevich Nayer; born 22 June 1977) is a Russian chess grandmaster and the European champion of 2015. He is also one of the coaches of the Russian women's national team.

Career

He won the Moscow City Chess Championship in 1998 and 2003.[1][2] In 2002 he shared the victory of the U.S. Open Chess Championship with Gennadi Zaichik.[3]

Najer won the Cappelle-la-Grande Open of 2004 on tiebreak over Kaido Külaots, Artyom Timofeev, Zoltan Gyimesi, Sergey Grigoriants and Oleg Korneev.[4] In the same year he tied for 1st–3rd with Michael Roiz and Leonid Gofshtein in the Ashdod Chess Festival.[5]

He won a gold medal at the 2005 Maccabiah Games in Israel.[6] In 2007 he won the 3rd Moscow Open edging out on tiebreak Vasily Yemelin.[7]

Najer won the World Open in Philadelphia consecutively in 2008 and 2009.[8] He was one of the seconds of Gata Kamsky in his 2009 match against Veselin Topalov ("Challenger Match").[9] In July 2009, Najer won the strong rapid round-robin tournament, whose field included Boris Gelfand and Judit Polgar among others, of the Richard Riordan Chess Festival[10] at the 2009 Maccabiah Games.[11] Soon afterwards, in the same month, he tied for first with Robert Fontaine in the Paleochora Open Tournament.[12] In 2010, he tied for 2nd–5th with Michael Adams, Victor Mikhalevski and Jiří Štoček the 14th Chicago Open.[13]

In 2015 he won the European Individual Chess Championship in Jerusalem with 8½/11.[14] This victory qualified him for the Chess World Cup 2015, where he was eliminated in the first round by Rauf Mamedov. Najer won the 2016 Aeroflot Open edging out Boris Gelfand on tiebreak, after both scored 6½/9 points; this achievement earned him a spot in the 2016 Dortmund Sparkassen Chess Meeting.[15] In 2017, he tied for first place with Emil Sutovsky in the 18th Karpov Chess Tournament in Poikovsky, Russia.[16][17] In 2019, whilst competing at the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019, Najer created a first round upset defeating Viswanathan Anand in 30 moves, the fourth seeded player in the tournament and former world chess champion.[18]

Personal life

Najer is Jewish.[19]

Together with 43 other Russian elite chess players, Najer signed an open letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin, protesting against the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.[20]

References

  1. ^ "Евгений Наер во второй раз взял Москву" (in Russian). Sovetsky Sport. 2003-05-15. Archived from the original on 2013-04-17. Retrieved 12 March 2016.
  2. ^ "Tournament report July 2003: Final Moscow Men Ch. – Russia". World Chess Federation. Retrieved 7 June 2010.
  3. ^ Donaldson, John. "Mechanics' Chess Club – Newsletter #068-119 (compilation)". Mechanics' Chess Club. Retrieved 7 June 2010.
  4. ^ Crowther, Mark (2004-03-08). "TWIC: Cappelle-la-Grande open". The Week in Chess. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  5. ^ Crowther, Mark (2005-01-10). "TWIC 531: 2nd Ashdod Chess Festival". London Chess Center. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  6. ^ "The Week in Chess 559".
  7. ^ "Illya Nyzhnyk wins Group B in Moscow Open". ChessBase. 2007-02-07. Retrieved 18 May 2010.
  8. ^ In 2008 after play-off with Parimarjan Negi, Lubomir Ftacnik and Alexander Moiseenko; in 2009 after play-off with Hikaru Nakamura. The Week in Chess 713
  9. ^ "Topalov-Kamsky starts with a draw and an odd legal note". ChessVibes. 2009-02-17. Retrieved 21 June 2010.
  10. ^ The Richard Riordan Chess Festival was sponsored by the former mayor of Los Angeles and included various tournaments for players of different levels: Chessdom article Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Najer wins Maccabiah rapid". ChessVibes. 2009-07-16. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  12. ^ "Paleohora International Open Chess Tournament". Chessdom. Retrieved 21 June 2010.
  13. ^ Crowther, Mark (2010-05-01). "The Week in Chess: 14th Chicago Open 2010". London Chess Centre. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
  14. ^ "Evgeniy Najer is new European Chess Champion". Chessdom. 2015-03-09. Archived from the original on 2017-04-29. Retrieved 2015-08-12.
  15. ^ McGourty, Colin. "Najer wins Aeroflot ticket to Dortmund". chess24. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
  16. ^ "18th Karpov Poikovsky 2017 | The Week in Chess". theweekinchess.com. Retrieved 2017-06-03.
  17. ^ "Sutovsky and Najer supreme at Karpov-Poikovsky". Chess News. 2017-05-03. Retrieved 2017-06-03.
  18. ^ "Najer vs Anand". Chess24. Retrieved 11 October 2019.
  19. ^ "Chess in Maccabiah". International Chess Tournaments Maccabliah 2013 – תחרויות שחמט בינלאומיות, מכביה 2013. 2013. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 13 November 2013.
  20. ^ "'Stop the war.' 44 Top Russian Players Publish Open Letter To Putin", Chess.com, 3 March 2022