Alexander Khalifman - Tournament Career

Tournament Career

Khalifman won the 1982 Soviet Union Youth Championship, 1984 Soviet Union championship, 1985 and 1987 Moscow championships, 1990 Groningen, 1993 Ter Apel, 1994 Chess Open of Eupen, 1995 Chess Open St. Petersburg, 1996 Russian Championship, 1997 Chess Grand Master Tournament St. Petersburg, 1997 Aarhus, 1997 World Team Chess Championship Luzern, 1998 Bad Wiessee, 2000 Hoogeveen, Netherlands, 2000 Chess Olympiad and 2002 Chess Olympiad tournaments.

Khalifman gained the Grandmaster title in 1990 with one particularly good early result being his first place in the 1990 New York Open ahead of a host of strong players. His most notable achievement was winning the FIDE World Chess Championship in 1999, a title he held until the following year. He was rated 44th in the world at the time, which some compared unfavorably to "Classical" World Champion Garry Kasparov being rated No. 1. Khalifman said after the tournament, "Rating systems work perfectly for players who play only in round robin closed events. I think most of them are overrated. Organizers invite same people over and over because they have the same rating and their rating stays high." Perhaps in response, Khalifman was invited to the next Linares chess tournament, and performed credibly (though placing below joint winner Kasparov).