Nikita Vitiugov

Nikita Vitiugov
Nikita Vitiugov at the Grenke Chess Open 2016
Full name	Nikita Kirillovich Vitiugov
Country	Russia
Born	(1987-02-04) 4 February 1987 Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2726 (December 2016)
Peak rating	2747 (March 2014)

Nikita Kirillovich Vitiugov (Russian: Никита Кириллович Витюгов; born 4 February 1987) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was a member of the gold-medal winning Russian team at the World Team Chess Championship in 2009 and 2013. He won the Gibraltar Masters tournament of 2013.

Vitiugov was one of Peter Svidler's seconds in the Candidates Tournaments of 2013^[1] and 2014.^[2]

Career

Vitiugov was the under-18 Russian champion in 2005 and the runner-up at the European under-18 championship in the same year. He came second at the Russian Junior Championship both in 2006 and 2007.^[3] He finished runner-up in the 2006 World Junior Chess Championship.^[4]

In July 2006, he won the "Blue Sevan" round-robin tournament in Sevan, Armenia to achieve his last norm required for the title of grandmaster.^[5][6] In December of that year, he took part in the Russian Championship Superfinal for the first time, finishing eleventh.^[7]

He qualified through the 2007 European Individual Chess Championship for the Chess World Cup 2007, in which he was knocked out by Konstantin Sakaev in the first round. In September of that year he won the Russian Championship Higher League and qualified for the Superfinal.^[8] Here he tied for 4th–6th places.^[9]

In 2008 he won the Baltic Sea Cup in Bornholm, Denmark edging out on tiebreak score Boris Savchenko,^[10] and the Cup of Russia, defeating Savchenko in the final.^[11]

In November 2009, he took part in the Chess World Cup, where he sequentially knocked out Abhijeet Gupta, Gilberto Milos and Konstantin Sakaev, then lost to Sergey Karjakin in the fourth round. The following month, Vitiugov finished third in the 62nd Russian Championship Superfinal.^[12] Thanks to his results in the 2009 Superfinal and in the 2009 World Team Championship, he crossed the 2700 Elo rating mark for the first time in the FIDE rating list of March 2010.

In April 2010, he took part in the 11th Anatoly Karpov Chess Tournament in Poikovsky, finishing joint third, fourth on tiebreak.^[13]

In March 2011, he tied for 1st–3rd with Evgeny Tomashevsky and Lê Quang Liêm in the Aeroflot Open, placing second on tiebreak.^[14] Later that year, Vitiugov competed in the World Cup, where he knocked out Alexei Bezgodov in the first round and Anton Korobov in the second, before losing to Vladimir Potkin in the third round. At the end of December 2011, VItiugov took part in the 54th Reggio Emilia chess tournament, scoring two wins, two draws and six losses.^[15]

In June 2012, Vitiugov tied for first place with Dmitry Andreikin and Daniil Dubov in the Russian Championship Higher League, finishing in third place on tiebreak.^[16]

In January 2013, Vitiugov won the Masters tournament of the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival beating defending champion Nigel Short in a rapid playoff. He and three others finished the tournament 8/10.^[17] In the 2013 Alekhine Memorial, held from 20 April to 1 May, Vitiugov finished fifth, with a score of 4½/9 (one win, one loss, seven draws).^[18]

At the Chess World Cup 2013 he defeated Conrad Holt and Markus Ragger in rounds one and two respectively, then was eliminated in the third by Alexander Morozevich. In October of the same year, he finished third in the Russian Championship Superfinal.^[19]

In January 2014, at the Gibraltar Masters he tied for first place with Vassily Ivanchuk and Ivan Cheparinov. In the playoffs, after winning against the former, he lost to the latter and eventually finished second.^[20] In the 2015 edition he tied for third place, placing fourth on tiebreak.^[21]

In August 2015 he placed third in the Russian Championship Superfinal.^[22] In the following month, he competed in the Chess World Cup 2015, where he was knocked out in the second round by Le Quang Liem, after defeating Samvel Ter-Sahakyan in the first. In 2016 Vitiugov tied for first in the Grenke Chess Open in Karlsruhe, Germany with Matthias Blübaum, Vladimir Fedoseev, Milos Perunovic, Ni Hua, and Francisco Vallejo Pons, taking third place on tiebreak.^[23]

Team competitions

Vitiugov made his debut in the Russian national team in August 2009 playing in the 6th China-Russia Match, held with the Scheveningen system.^[24] He played board 6 for the Russian team that win the gold medal at the World Team Chess Championship 2009 in Bursa scoring 5.5/6. His rating performance of 2939, the second best of the event, earned him also an individual gold medal.^[25] Vitiugov played on the third board for Russia's second team at the 39th Chess Olympiad scoring 6/9.^[26] In July 2011 he took part in the 8th World Team Championship in Ningbo scoring 4/6 on board 5; thanks to this result, he won an individual gold medal.^[27] In the World Team Championship 2013 in Antalya, Vitiugov won team gold and individual bronze playing on the reserve board.^[28]

Vitiugov plays for Saint-Petersburg Chess Federation in the Russian Team Championship and in the European Chess Club Cup. He helped his team to win gold at the European Club Cup 2011, scoring 5.5/7 with a rating performance of 2835; thanks to this result he also won individual gold on second board.^[29][30] In November 2012 he helped his team to win silver at the 28th European Club Cup and also won individual bronze on board 3.^[31][32] In the Russian Team Championship 2013 he won team gold and individual bronze on the second board.^[33] In the 29th European Club Cup he took silver on the third board.^[34]

Books

• Nikita Vitiugov (2010). The French Defence: a Complete Black Repertoire. Chess Stars. ISBN 978-954-8782-76-0. 

• Nikita Vitiugov (2012). The French Defence Reloaded. Chess Stars. ISBN 978-954-8782-86-9. 

References

External links

• Nikita Vitiugov chess games at 365Chess.com
• Nikita Vitiugov player profile and games at Chessgames.com
• Articles by Nikita Vitiugov on e3e5.com
• Interview (2006) (Russian)
• Interview (2007) (Russian)