Alexey Eduardovich Kim (born April 5, 1986) is a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

-born

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

player. He is the only South Korean to hold the

FIDE The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...

title of Grandmaster.

Biography

A third-generation

ethnic Korean Koreans ( South Korean: , , North Korean: , ; see names of Korea) are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Korean Peninsula. Koreans mainly live in the two Korean nation states: North Korea and South Korea (collectively and simply refer ...

, Kim was born on April 5, 1986, in

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

, in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

. He learned chess from his grandfather, Nikolay Vladimirovich Kim, at four years old. When he was eleven, he won the

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Junior Championship. Kim became a

FIDE master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

in 2000, an

international master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (chess), Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combinatio ...

in 2001, and a grandmaster in 2004. In 2006, he paid the required fee to

(chess's international governing body) to

switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...

his national federation to South Korea, in keeping with his grandfather's wishes. Kim played on the South Korean team in the

2008 Chess Olympiad The 38th Chess Olympiad (german: Die 38. Schacholympiade), organized by FIDE and comprising an open and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place from 12 to 25 November 2008 in Dresden, ...

. In 2013, he shared first place with Stanislav Novikov, Batuhan Dastan, Hagen Poetsch,

Ralf Åkesson Ralf Åkesson (born 8 February 1961) is a Swedish chess player. He was awarded by FIDE the titles of International Master (IM) in 1981 and Grandmaster (GM) in 1995, and by ICCF the title of Senior International Correspondence Master (SIM) in 20 ...

Jonathan Hawkins Jonathan Hawkins (born 1 May 1983) is an English chess grandmaster. He was the British Chess Champion in 2015, having outscored David Howell, with whom he shared the title in 2014. Chess career Hawkins's chess career is unusual for the modern ...

and Kacper Drozdowski in the 18th

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Chess Open.

References

External links

*
Alexey Kim
chess games at 365Chess.com * 1986 births Living people Chess grandmasters Chess Olympiad competitors Koryo-saram people Sportspeople from Tashkent Russian chess players South Korean chess players {{SouthKorea-sport-bio-stub