Who is Anish Giri?

Who is Anish Giri?
by Jagadish of www.imchess.com

We start a series on the players that are participating in the 2009 edition of the Corus Chess tournament. We are focusing on players that are relatively less known on the International circuit. Please pass on any extra information that you have or if you spot any errors since we’ve dug up information that is available on the internet and put it together.

Anish Giri
Corus Chess 2009 – Group C

Facts- Was born on 14th June 1994. That makes him 14, running 15.

– Anish’s father, Sanjay Giri, is of Nepalese origin. His mother is a Russian. Anish himself was born in St. Petersburg, the beautiful city that already boasts of famous names.
– Anish’s father was working in Russia. They recently moved to The Netherlands.- His hero is the legend Garry Kasparov.
– Started playing chess at the age of 7, sparring with his mom and later improved by reading Chess books and playing on the internet.
– Anish stresses a lot on his school studies and tries to maintain a fine balance between Chess and School. No doubt this habit has been inherited from his Scientist father. He has earned the highest grades at school.
– Loves sports in general, Football and Table Tennis in particular.

Achievements

– Anish’s first achievement was a win in the U-9 section in Hokkaido (Japan), where his father was posted for a few years.
– Won the U-12 Russian title and tied for the 3rd place in the same age group at the European level.
– Finished 4th at the Young Masters tournament at Enschede. He beat the other big prodigy Illya Nyzhnyk of Ukraine in this tournament. Also drew some very strong GMs too.
– Anish finished first in the strong Open tournament at Hilversum. He ranked ahead of no less than seven GMs. He earned a GM norm with this performance.
– He was invited to play for the SK Emsdetten club in the Bundlesliga next year, reportedly the youngest ever to play in the Bundesliga. He is currently rated 2466 on FIDE’s rating list. He has risen so fast that he has not had enough time to even earn an IM title. Right now, he is just an FM, but it will not be long before he leaps to GM hood soon.
– Has wins over GMs Chatalbashev, Timoshenko. Drew many strong GMs such as Erik Van Den Doel, Sandipan Chanda, John Van Der Weil, Adly, Nidjat Mamedov, and Sulskis among others. This is remarkable since he has had very little exposure to GM level chess.