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Ruslan Ponomariov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ruslan Ponomariov
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ruslan Olegovich Ponomariov (Ukrainian:

, Ruslan Olehovych Ponomar'ov;
Russian:

; born October 11,
1983) is a Ukrainian chess player.

Ruslan Ponomariov

He was FIDE World Chess Champion between 2002 and

2004 He was a finalist in the Chess World Cup 2005 and
Chess World Cup 2009, while reaching the semi-finals in
2011.

Contents
1 Early career
2 FIDE World Chess Champion 2002
3 Post-championship career
4 Opening repertoire
5 References
6 External links

Early career

Ruslan Ponomariov
Full name
Country

Ukraine

Born

October 11, 1983

Horlivka, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union

Title

Grandmaster

200204 (FIDE)
World
Champion

Ponomariov was born in Horlivka in Ukraine. He learned to

play chess from his father at the age of 5. At 9 he became a
2713
FIDE
Class A player, and in September 1993 he moved to
(http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?
rating
Kramatorsk, where he lived in the family of his namesakes.
event=14103320) (March 2015)
The head of the family, Mikhail Nikitovich Ponomariov, was
(No. 23 in the January 2012 FIDE World
the director of a chess club, and then the Head of the famous
Rankings)
A. V. Momot Kramatorsk School. His son, Boris, became
2764 (July 2011)
Peak
Ruslans trainer. [1] In 1994 he placed third in the World
rating
Under-12 Championship at the age of ten. In 1996 he won
the European Under-18 Championship at the age of just
twelve, and the following year won the World Under-18 Championship. In 1998, at the age of fourteen, he was
awarded the Grandmaster title, making him the youngest ever player at that time to hold the title. In 1999, he was a
member of the Ukrainian national youth team, which won the U-16 Chess Olympiad in Artek, Ukraine.[2]
Among Ponomariov's notable later results are first at the Donetsk Zonal in 1998,[3] 5/7 in the European Club Cup
2000 (including a victory over then-FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman), joint first with 7/9 at
Torshavn 2000, 8/11 for Ukraine in the 2001 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, winning gold medal on board 2, and
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first place with 7/10 in the 2001 Governor's Cup in Kramatorsk.

FIDE World Chess Champion 2002

In 2002 he beat his fellow countryman Vassily Ivanchuk in the final of the FIDE World Chess Championship 2002
by a score of 4/2 to become FIDE World Champion at the age of 18, the first teenager and youngest person to
ever become FIDE World Champion.
In the same year he finished second in the very strong Linares tournament, behind Garry Kasparov. His result in the
strong 2003 Corus tournament at Wijk aan Zee was not as good despite having the third highest Elo rating, he
finished only joint eleventh out of fourteen players with 6/13, and at Linares the same year he finished only fifth out
of seven with 5/12.
There were plans for him to play a fourteen-game match against Kasparov in Yalta in September 2003, the winner
of which would go on to play the winner of a match between Vladimir Kramnik and Pter Lk as part of the socalled "Prague Agreement" to reunify the World Chess Championship (from 1993 until 2006 there were two world
chess championships). However, this was called off by FIDE on the grounds that Ruslan Ponomariov failed to sign
the contract in time. The latter always alleged lack of equality in the contract for both contenders.
Ponomariov remained FIDE champion until Rustam Kasimdzhanov won the FIDE World Chess Championship
2004.

Post-championship career
On Ponomariov's 20th birthday, October 11, 2003, he became the first high-profile player to forfeit a game
because of his mobile phone ringing during play. This happened in round one of the European Team Chess
Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when Ponomariov was playing Black against Swedish GM Evgenij Agrest.
In 2004, Ruslan won the gold at the 2004 Chess Olympiad held in Calvi, Spain, with the Ukrainian team.
In 2005 he won the 15th edition of the Ciudad de Pamplona tournament. He also won a rapid tournament in
Odessa, Ukraine, and the Golden Blitz Cup in Moscow. Finally, that year he reached the 2005 Chess World Cup
final against Levon Aronian, who won the final.
In 2006 he shared first place with Levon Aronian and Peter Leko in the Tal Memorial tournament in Moscow.
In 2009 he shared first place with Hikaru Nakamura at the Donostia Chess Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. The
latter won the tie-break blitz games 20. Ruslan Ponomariov got one more second place by tie-break that year in
the Khanty-Mansiysk 2009 Chess World Cup, where he reached the final against Israeli Boris Gelfand. After four
classic games, four rapid games, and two blitz games with a drawn score, Gelfand finally won in one last set of two
blitz games.
In July 2010 Ruslan Ponomariov won the prestigious Sparkassen tournament in Dortmund, one point ahead of L
Quang Lim, from Vietnam. In September that year Ukraine won the gold once more at the 2010 Chess Olympiad
in Khanty-Mansiysk with players Vassily Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Pavel Eljanov, Zahar Efimenko, and
Alexander Moiseenko.

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In February 2011, after occupying an unfortunate last place at the World Blitz Championship in November 2010 in
Moscow, GM Ponomariov showed great improvement at the strong Aeroflot Blitz held in the same city by reaching
second place, just half a point behind Shakhriyar Mamedyarov.
In June 2011 he won the 80th Ukrainian Chess Championship, the strongest ever in the country, with 8/11 and a
performance rating of 2853.[4]

Opening repertoire
In his games with white, Ponomariov has almost always played 1.e4 (see chess opening), entering the main lines of
the Ruy Lopez and Sicilian Defence. With black, he has played the Sicilian against 1.e4 and also replied 1...e5,
going into the Ruy Lopez. Against 1.d4 he has adopted a variety of defences, including the Queen's Gambit
Accepted, the Queen's Indian Defence and the King's Indian Defence. Earlier in his career he experimented with
the Benko Gambit and Pirc Defence, but as of 2003 these have fallen out of his repertoire.

References
1. "KC-Conference with Ruslan Ponomariov: Part 1" (http://www.crestbook.com/en/node/1429). crestbook.com.
2011-02-22. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
2. 5th World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad: Artek 1999 (http://www.olimpbase.org/1999ch/1999ukr.html)
3. Donetsk Zonal 1998 (http://members.lycos.co.uk/csarchive/donetsk.htm)
4. "80th Ukrainian Championship pictorial impressions" (http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7312).
ChessBase.com. 2011-06-23. Retrieved 24 June 2011.

External links
Ruslan Ponomariov
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=12109) player
profile and games at Chessgames.com

Wikimedia Commons has

media related to Ruslan
Ponomariov.

OlimpBase (http://www.olimpbase.org/players/7b9f7xdi.html)
Links to many articles about Ponomariov (http://chess-sector.odessa.ua/ruslan.html)
Interview (http://interviews.chessdom.com/ruslan-ponomariov)
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Viswanathan Anand

FIDE World Chess Champion

200204

Succeeded by
Rustam Kasimdzhanov

Preceded by
tienne Bacrot

Youngest chess grandmaster ever

199799

Succeeded by
Bu Xiangzhi

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ruslan_Ponomariov&oldid=650286585"

Categories: World chess champions World Youth Chess Champions Chess grandmasters
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Chess Olympiad competitors Ukrainian chess players Ukrainian people of Russian descent 1983 births
People from Horlivka Living people
This page was last modified on 7 March 2015, at 12:10.
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