Alexander Motylev

Alexander Motylev
Full name	Александр Анатольевич Мотылёв
Country	Russia
Born	(1979-06-17) 17 June 1979 Sverdlosk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster
FIDE rating	2663 (December 2016)
Peak rating	2710 (July 2009)

Alexander Anatolyevich Motylev (Russian: Александр Анатольевич Мотылёв; born 17 June 1979) is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former European champion and a former Russian champion. He is also Sergey Karjakin's trainer and one of the coaches of the Russian national team.^[1]

He learnt how to play at the age of four and a half years and at age six took part in group instruction sessions. Motylev became a Candidate Master at eleven years old.^[2] Around this time, he was also gifted at football, a sport for which he had major aspirations. Made aware of his split loyalties by his chess coach, Motylev's physical education teacher advised him to concentrate on chess and this proved to be good advice, as he went on to become national junior champion at both under 16 and under 18 level.^[2]

Motylev was the runner-up in the 1998 European Junior Chess Championship, won by Levon Aronian.^[3]

In 2001, he won the Russian Chess Championship and played for the national team in the World Team Chess Championship, where he contributed to the team silver medal scoring 2/3.^[4] In 2002, he was invited to take part in the Russia vs Rest of the World match in Moscow and, in the company of the world's elite players, scored 1/6. In 2003, he won the Corsican Open at Bastia, ahead of a strong field including Loek van Wely, Krishnan Sasikiran and Sergei Tiviakov.

In 2004, Motylev won the Tomsk qualifier^[5] and in the Superfinal of the 57th Russian Championship he finished fourth, behind Garry Kasparov, with whom Motylev drew, Alexander Grischuk and Alexey Dreev.^[6] In 2005, he tied for first in the Aeroflot Open.^[7] Later that year, Motylev finished second at the 2nd Sanjin Hotel Cup, behind Pentala Harikrishna, whom he defeated, and qualified again for the Russian Superfinal, this time by finishing equal third in Kazan.^[8]

In 2006, he was the joint winner of the Corus B Tournament in Wijk aan Zee with Magnus Carlsen. Motylev finished second, behind Ian Nepomniachtchi, in the Aeroflot Open 2008.^[9] In June 2009, he won the 10th Poikovsky Karpov tournament (category 18, 2694) in Poikovsky, Russia.^[10]

Motylev won the 2014 European Individual Chess Championship in Yerevan with 9/11 and a rating performance of 2872, the best performance in the event's history.^[11] In April 2014, he took clear second place, behind Pavel Eljanov, in the B tournament of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial in Şəmkir, Azerbaijan.^[12] In July of the same year, he participated in the Biel Grandmaster Tournament and scored 3.5/10 (+1=4-5), finishing last.^[13]

He placed equal first (second on tiebreak) in the 2015 Russian Championship Higher League with 6.5/9 and qualified for the Superfinal.^[14] In the latter he scored 4/11, tying for 11th-12th place with Ildar Khairullin and placing last on tiebreak.^[15]

His father Anatoly is a FIDE Master.^[16]

References

• Chesscafe interview

External links

• Alexander Motylev chess games at 365Chess.com
• Alexander Motylev player profile and games at Chessgames.com
• Alexander Motylev player profile at the Internet Chess Club