Shahriyar Hamid oghlu Mammadyarov (
Azerbaijani: Şəhriyar Həmid oğlu Məmmədyarov; born 12 April 1985), known internationally as Shakhriyar Mamedyarov[a], is an Azerbaijani
chess grandmaster. As of December 2023,[update] he is Azerbaijan's highest rated chess player. His personal best
rating of 2820 makes him the
sixth-highest-rated player in chess history.
A gold medalist at the 2012 Chess Olympiad on the third board, he is a three-time
European Team Champion (2009, 2013, 2017) with Azerbaijan. He is also a two-time winner at
Tal Memorial (2010 joint and 2014 Blitz) and
Shamkir Chess (2016 and 2017), as well as the winner of 2018
Biel Chess Festival where he beat reigning World Champion
Magnus Carlsen.
Personal life
Shakhriyar's parents are from the
Zangilan District of Azerbaijan. In 1980, his family moved to the then-flourishing industrial city of
Sumqayit, Azerbaijan, where Shakhriyar was born. His first chess trainer was his father, who is also a former boxer and taught boxing to Shakhriyar for some time. Mamedyarov has two sisters,
Zeinab Mamedyarova and
Turkan Mamedyarova, who are
Woman Grandmasters.[1] Mamedyarov got married in 2012,[2] but later divorced. He remarried in July 2017.[3]
Professional chess career
In 2003, Mamedyarov won the
World Junior Chess Championship.[4] He repeated his victory in 2005, becoming the only two-time champion, while achieving a 2953 performance rating after eight rounds.[5] This performance earned him an invitation to the Essent Tournament 2006 in
Hoogeveen. After winning this and the 2007 edition, Mamedyarov achieved world fame.[6]
In 2005 Mamedyarov competed at the
European Club Cup and had the second-highest performance rating (2913), after
Vassily Ivanchuk, of all of the participants.
Mamedyarov attained joint first place at the
Aeroflot Open in
Moscow in February 2006, with a score of 6½/9.[7] In May, he won the combined FiNet/Ordix rapid event.[8] In October 2006, he won the closed Essent Chess Tournament in Hoogeveen with 4½/6, beating
Judit Polgár on
Sonneborn-Berger tie-breaks.[9]
In November 2014, he won the Tal Memorial for the second time.[15]
In June 2016, Mamedyarov won the 3rd
Shamkir Chess Tournament, the Vugar Gashimov Memorial. He defeated both top seeds
Fabiano Caruana and
Anish Giri in the last two rounds, which put him in a tiebreak situation with Caruana. He defeated Caruana in the tiebreak, thus giving him tournament victory.
In April 2017, Mamedyarov won the Vugar Gashimov Memorial for the second year in a row with a score of 5½/9.[16]
In April 2018, he participated in the
fifth edition of the Gashimov Memorial, finishing fourth with a score of 4½/9 (+1–1=7).[17]
From 28 May to 7 June 2018, he competed in the
sixth edition of Norway Chess, placing seventh with 3½/8 (+0–1=7).[18]
In June 2021, Mamedyarov won Superbet Chess Classic tournament in which Fabiano Caruana, Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Teimour Radjabov and Wesley So participated. [23]
Through February and March 2022, Mamedyarov played in the
FIDE Grand Prix 2022. In the second leg, he placed second in Pool D with a 3/6 result. In the third leg, he won his pool with a result of 3.5/6 and a 3/4 result in rapid and blitz tiebreakers against
Vincent Keymer.
In the
2014 cycle, he qualified for the Candidates Tournament by coming second in the
FIDE Grand Prix 2012–13. He finished fourth in the Candidates, with a score of 7/14.
In the 2018 cycle, he qualified for the
Candidates Tournament 2018 by winning the
FIDE Grand Prix 2017. He finished as a runner-up in Candidates one point behind Caruana, with a score of 8/14.
Mamedyarov played for Azerbaijan at the
Chess Olympiads of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.[26] In 2009, 2013 and 2017 he won the team gold medal for Azerbaijan at the
European Team Chess Championship, having won the bronze medal in 2007 and silver in 2011.[27][28]