Evgeny Bareev
Country: Russia
Date of birth: November 21, 1966
Rating July 1, 2008: 2655

For almost twenty years now Evgeny Bareev has been one of the best known and most successful Russian chess players. Following his win in the 1982 U-16 Junior World Championship the Muscovite decidedly fought his way to the absolute world top. Thanks to victories such as in Hastings and the World Cup Qualifier Final in Moscow in 1990, he shot up to fourth place in the 1991 world rankings with a 2680 rating. From that moment onwards he became a regular guest at the best tournaments. In 2003 he was again in fourth place in the world rankings, this time with 2739 points, the all-time high in his career. Probably his finest victory was first place in the Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 2002, but there is so much more that he can be proud of. On many occasions he was a member of the Russian national team and in this capacity he won various gold medals at the Olympiad. In 2005 he was a member of the winning Russian squad at the World Team Championship in Beer-Sheva. His score of 5,5 out of 6 was the best in his team. In 2003 Bareev won the rapid competition in the Amber tournament in Monaco and in that same year he also claimed first place in Enghien-les-Bains. Although he has been less active as a player in recent years, he kept scoring fine results. In the Candidates Tournament in Dortmund in 2004 he reached the semi-finals, where he was eliminated by Topalov, and in the World Cup Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2005 he qualified for the FIDE Candidates matches in 2007. In the first round in Elista he defeated Judit Polgar, but in the second round he lost to Leko.
In the meantime he also made his name as a second. In 2000 he was a member of the team of Kramnik, who defeated Kasparov in London to become world champion, and he also helped Kramnik in his match against Leko in Brissago in 2004. About his experiences as a second Bareev, together with his friend Ilya Levitov, wrote the acclaimed bestseller From London to Elista.

Viktor Kortchnoi
Country: Switzerland
Date of birth:  March 23, 1931
Rating July 1, 2008: 2602

Artur Jussupow
Country: Germany
Date of birth: February 13, 1960
Rating July 1, 2008: 2587

Nicknames such as ‘the Bear’ or ‘the Ural Wall’ might easily create a misguided impression about the gentle and kind personality that hides behind a somewhat wild appearance. And of course those nicknames only refer to the chess of Artur Jussupow. From him one can expect a solid positional game, but just as well a fierce tactical skirmish. His brilliant win over Ivanchuk in the rapid play-off of their Candidates’ match in Brussels in 1991 remains one of the absolute attacking master pieces of the past twenty years. For more than ten years now Jussupow has been living in Germany and he also has the German nationality, but he was born in Moscow and developed into a world class player in the Soviet Union. In 1977 he became Junior World Champion and he wasn’t even a grandmaster when in 1979 he finished second in the Soviet championship. In the years that followed he won tournaments in Esbjerg (1980), Yerevan (1981), Tunis (1985) and shared first place in the Candidates’ Tournament in Montpellier in 1985. In the Candidates’ matches for the world championship he often played a prominent role and three times he managed to reach the semi-finals. Other tournament successes that should not be left unmentioned are Amsterdam 1994, the World Open in Philadelphia in 2002, the German Championship in Altenkirchen in 2005 and his first place in the European rapid championship in that same year.
Jussupow was educated in the chess school of Mark Dvoretsky and it didn’t come as a big surprise when he began to show an interest in training methods himself. And although he is still active as a player, he dedicates a considerable amount of his time to training work, both in his own school and abroad, as the chess players in Apeldoorn will happily confirm. In the past years he’s also been working as a second of Anand and Leko. Last year Jussupow, together with Nikolic, scored the best result on the Experience team. This time too he will be determined to show what he is still capable of.

Simen Agdestein
Country: Norway
Date of birth: May 15, 1967
Rating July 1, 2008: 2583

These days Simen Agdestein is mainly known as ‘the first trainer of Magnus Carlsen’ and ‘that wondrously double-talented chess player’, as he also was an excellent football player. And all this is true, of course. For many years Agdestein was a gifted member of FC Lyn, eight times he played in the Norwegian national time, and during his active career he attracted the interest of foreign clubs such as Besiktas and Aberdeen. Unfortunately, a knee injury put an untimely end to his football career. But apart from all this, the tall Norwegian of course is also a gifted chess player, who first came to the fore on the international scene when in 1986 he came second at the Junior World Championships, ahead of amongst others Anand(!) and Bareev. Agdestein is a natural talent who never worked much on his openings, preferring to rely on his understanding of the game and his fighting spirit. Typical for his attitude was a game he played against Boris Spassky when he was only sixteen years old. Before that game young Simen decided that both players had the same number of pieces and pawns and that he need not lose if he made the strongest move in every position. An excellent plan, for he won that game. After the Junior World Championship he won the Lloyds Bank Tournament in London and in the years that followed his rating rose above 2600. He didn’t settle in the absolute world top, but through the years he kept winning tournaments, as in Cappelle-la-Grande in 1999 and on the Isle of Man in 2003. The Norwegian Championship he won seven times, the last time in 2005, when he still managed to edge out Magnus Carlsen. He also played many times on the Norwegian team at Olympiads. In 1982 he won the gold medal on first board. Of late Agdestein has been playing less, because he teaches at the Norwegian academy for top athletes, but whenever he sits down to play he does so with his trademark concentration and dedication. And we shouldn’t forget to mention that In Norway he is a celebrity who regularly appears on television in programs such as Dancing with the Stars! 

Ljubomir Ljubojevic
Country: Serbia
Date of birth: November 2, 1950
Rating July 1, 2008: 2555

Between last year’s NH Chess Tournament and this third edition, Ljubomir Ljubojevic played only six games, but in those games he showed his best side. Last January, at the 70th Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee, he claimed the ‘Honorary Group’ with a score of  4 out of 6, ahead of Kortchnoi, Timman and Portisch. Add to this result the fervour with which he played in Krasnapolsky in the past two years and there can be no doubt that this time too he will play with all his might.
For several decades ‘Ljubo’ was the most successful player of Yugoslavia, one of the strongest and most popular chess countries in the world. His comet-like rise started after he had finished second in the 1970 European Junior Championship and was invited to play in a grandmaster tournament in Sarajevo. Ljubojevic won that tournament and already the next year he earned the grandmaster title. In the years that followed he kept winning tournaments and in the 1983 world rankings he was in third place behind Karpov and Kasparov. It is hard to say which were his best tournament achievements, but there can be no denying that his shared first places (and the fascinating neck-and-neck races) with Kasparov in Brussels in 1987 and in Barcelona in 1989 are among them. In an interview Ljubojevic himself also mentioned his victory in Linares in 1985, his 11 out of 14 super-score on first board at the 1982 Olympiad in Lucerne, and several tournaments that he won way ahead of the rest, such as Las Palmas in 1974 and ’75 and Manila in 1975. But in that case we haven’t even mentioned the following first places: Wijk aan Zee 1976, Buenos Aires 1980 and ’81, Belgrade 1987 and Reggio Emilia 1991. And, of course, his overall victory at the Amber Blindfold and Rapid Tournament in Monaco in 1993. Thanks to his aggressive and imaginative style Ljubojevic won over many fans and his often unusual opening ideas inspired countless followers. Whoever wants to get a taste of his style should play through his masterpiece against Andersson from Wijk aan Zee 1976, a spectacular fight which at the time was described as ‘the best game of the past twenty years’.

Wang Yue
Country: China
Date of birth: March 31, 1987
Rating July 1, 2008: 2704

Any remaining doubt about China’s status of new chess powerhouse was convincingly dispelled at the Turin Olympiad two years ago. Fielding a team of youngsters the Chinese claimed second place, behind Armenia, but well ahead of the favourites from Russia. The big star of the Chinese squad was Wang Yue. From 12 games he scored 10 points, which meant a performance rating of 2837! In the last round he hauled in a crucial point when he defeated Loek van Wely.
Wang Yue has long acted in the shadow of Bu Xiangzhi, who is two years older than he is and who once was the youngest grandmaster in the World, but it was Wang Yue who last year was the first Chinese grandmaster to break the magical 2700 barrier. In the meantime China can boast three over-2700 players, these two top talents and Ni Hua, but the milestone in Chinese chess was planted by Wang Yue.
Although Wang Yue is relatively unknown in the West, he obviously didn’t suddenly appear out of the blue. He was born in Taiyuan, where at the age of six he learned how to play chess. Soon afterwards he had his First successes in junior tournaments. Today, Wang Yue is a student at the prestigious Nankai University in Tianjin, but  quick glance at his results in the past two years shows that his teachers leave him enough time to play chess to his heart’s content.  In 2007 he shared second place at the Aeroflot Open in Moscow and he won big Opens in Cappelle-la-Grande and in the Philippines. He performed well in various team competitions and reached the final 16 players at the World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk. In the past months of this year he’s also shown excellent form. He claimed a gold medal at the Asian Team Championship and shared First place in the Reykjavik Open. One of his best results ever he had in Baku, where he was one of the four players that came out on top in the first Grand Prix tournament. Besides chess he is also fond of all kinds of games.

     

Ivan Cheparinov
Country: Bulgaria
Date of birth: November 26, 1986
Rating July 1, 2008: 2687

Although at the start of this year he occupied 19th place in the world rankings and his current 36th position says enough about his own strength, Ivan Cheparinov is mainly known as ‘the second of Veselin Topalov’. For a large part the young Bulgarian owes this epithet to Topalov himself. On various occasions he frankly admitted at press conferences that the staggering novelty he had played that day was in fact not his own invention, but a discovery of Cheparinov’s. One recent example was the stunning knight sacrifice with which he defeated Kramnik in this year’s Corus Tournament, a concept that was so special that the Frankfurter Allgemeine put it on front page the next day! Apart from assistant, Cheparinov, who won the Bulgarian junior championship at the age of twelve, is a grandmaster in his won right, who keeps growing stronger and stronger. An attacking player with a style that is very similar to that of his boss. Cheparinov also likes to go for sharp positions that severely test the creativity and the calculating powers of the players. And it’s a style that has brought him success. In 2006 he won the Essent Open and in 2007 he shared First place in the Open of Morelia. On both occasions he combined his own chess-playing activities with his work as a second for Topalov, who was competing in the main events. But from time to time Cheparinov goes to tournaments alone. Last year he came shared first at the European Individual Championship in Dresden and won the Sigeman Tournament in Malmö in a great show of strength. For the moment his 19th spot in the world rankings is the highlight in his career, a peak which he owed amongst others to his 6/7 score at the European Club Cup. However, in the months that followed he had to hand in precious rating points. In Wijk aan Zee he didn’t show his best in the B-Group and in his first super-tournament in Sofia he also performed below expectation. Accompanied by Silvio Danailov as his second, Cheparinov will be all set to play a prominent role in Amsterdam in the fight for the coveted ticket to the Amber Tournament.

Fabiano Caruana
Country: Italy
Date of birth: July 30, 1992
Rating July 1, 2008: 2630

It cannot be called a total surprise that Fabiano Caruana has called the Netherlands ‘the best chess country in the world’, for every time he appears in our country something special happens. Last year, in Summer, he won, at the age of fifteen, the Hogeschool Zeeland Tournament in Vlissingen with superior ease, ahead of experienced grandmasters such as Kasimdzhanov and Tiviakov. And in January of this year he was unstoppable in the C-Group of the Corus Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Playing uncompromising chess he finished two points ahead of Dimitri Reinderman and Parimarjan Negi (+9,-2,=2!). Caruana is one of the greatest super-talents of the moment. With giant leaps he climbs the world rankings, with an average annual Elo gain of some one hundred points. On the January 1 list of 2006, 13-year-old Caruana ‘only’ had a rating of 2409. One year on his rating had gone up to 2492 and one further year on it had become 2598. In the meantime he has ascended to 2630.
Caruana was born in Miami, in the United States, where he broke several records. In September 2002, when he was ten, he defeated his first grandmaster in an official tournament and last year, on July 15, he became the youngest grandmaster in American history at the age of fourteen years and 350 days. In both cases he broke the old record of Hikaru Nakamura. But besides an American passport, Caruana also holds an Italian passport and so at the end of 2006 he played in the Italian Championship for the first time. He finished in a tie for first place but lost the play-off against Godena. In December 2007 he knew no mercy. In Martina Franca he became Italian champion with a score of 9½ out of 11, three points clear of the closest pursuers. By then he and his family had taken a couple of important decisions. He chose to represent Italy in international competitions and they moved to Budapest to be closer to the European circuit and to train with grandmaster Alexander Chernin.

Daniel Stellwagen
Country: The Netherlands
Date of birth: March 1, 1987
Rating July 1, 2008: 2616

It’s hard to say if the NH Chess Tournament will be work for Daniel Stellwagen or of it will feel like a holiday. As a student of chemistry at the University of Utrecht, Stellwagen has less time to play chess than the other ‘Rising Stars’, but for the moment he manages to combine his studies and his chess very well. In his studies everything is going according to plan and on the chess board he has shown in the past year that he is still ambitious. Probably his best result in the past twelve months was his second place in the Sigeman-toernooi in Malmö, behind Tiger Hillarp-Persson, but ahead of Lars Bo Hansen, Ralf Akesson and Jan Timman. At the Dutch Championship, too, he performed well with a shared second place (half a point behind his second in Amsterdam, Jan Smeets!) although he might have hoped for more after his shared first place last year. He also contributed heavily (4½ out of 5) to the Dutch national championship of his teram of HSG. However, in the German Bundesliga things went less well this season, although he did score a spectacular victory against Peter Svidler.
Stellwagen is seen by many as Holland’s biggest talent since Loek van Wely. This is easy to understand as he created great expectations at an early age. He was only eleven years old when at the VAM-tournament in Hoogeveen he defeated his First grandmaster and when he was fifteen he became Holland’s youngest International Master ever. In 2004 he also earned the grandmaster title after he’d come shared second behind Krishnan Sasikiran at the Hogeschool Schaak Toernooi in Vlissingen. As a junior player Stellwagen had excellent results in national and international contests, although he no longer took part in such events in Holland after he’d won the U-20 championship at the age of 15. Most probably he will not hesitate between work and holidays in Krasnapolsky, but mainly enjoy the tournament before he goes back to university next month.

Erwin l’Ami
Country: The Netherlands
Date of birth: April 5, 1985
Rating July 1, 2008: 2610

Erwin l’Ami is the only one of the Dutch ‘Three Musketeers’ who has made chess his profession. Whereas his friends Daniel Stellwagen and Jan Smeets (exactly the same age to the day!) combine their chess pursuits with academic studies, l’Ami’s everyday life is fully determined by tournaments and training sessions. L’Ami made this choice shortly after he’d become a grandmaster in 2005, thanks to, amongst others a victory at the Gausdal Classic (in 2004) and (his last GM-norm) a shared second place in the Amsterdam Chess Tournament. One of his first tournaments as a professional was a remarkable event in Nagorno-Karabakh, where he shared first prize in the second group with Tigran Petrosian and Sergey Grigoriants. In the years that followed, l’Ami won many weekenders and Opens, amongst others is Vlissingen (ahead of Nijboer and Gurevich), Utrecht, Bussum, Soest and Haarlem. But his best result so far he scored this spring in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. In a field of 337 players, more than one hundred of them grandmasters, l’Ami finished in second place together with amongst others Movsesian, Volkov and Tregubov, half a point behind the new champion, Sergey Tiviakov. His performance rating was over 2700, he gained 17 rating points and to cap it all he earned a ticket for the World Championship. His performance in this year’s Dutch club season was even higher, 2787! Small wonder that with a score of 5½ out of 6, l’Ami contributed heavily to the national championship of his club HSG. That he takes his profession seriously can be seen from his recent collaboration with Ivan Cheparinov. For instance, at the MTel Masters in Sofia he was the second of the second of Topalov. In Krasnapolsky both Cheparinov and l’Ami will fight for their own chances.