Ernesto Inarkiev is a Russian chess grandmaster, the first ever from Kalmykia. He was European champion in 2016. From July 2005 on a permanent basis Inarkiev is among top-100 best chess players in the world according to the FIDE rating. From 2006 representing Moscow. With Moscow team won the Russian championship in rapid chess in 2015.
Life and career
Inarkiev, who was named after Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was born in the Khaidarkan, Kyrgyzstan. In 1999, he won the Asian under-16 championship and the men championship of Kyrgyzstan. He played for Kyrgyzstan in two Chess Olympiads: in 1998 and 2000. In 2000 accepted Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's offer to move to Elista with his family, and started to representRussian Chess Federation and Kalmykia. From 2001 was trained by one of the best coaches in the world Mark Dvoretsky. Inarkiev won the Under-16 division of the European Youth Chess Championshipin 2001. In 2002, Inarkiev won the Russian junior championship. In 2005 Inarkiev moved to Moscow, wherein 2008 graduated from economic faculty of RSSU, in finance and credit. Inarkiev won twice the Higher league of the Russian championship. In 2006 finished third in the Superfinal of the 59th Russian Chess Championship. Five-time winner of the Russian team championship with the team "Tomsk-400" S)/post/tomsk-400-wins-the-ruian-premier-league 2009], ). Two-time winner of European Club Cup with the team "Tomsk-400". Winner of several international tournaments, including the Baku Open-2014 and 3rd Sharjah Masters 2019. Inarkiev won the "Moscow Open 2015" with impressive result 8/9. In 2016, Inarkiev won the European Championship in Gjakova with a performance of 2882. In November 2017, with a rating 2767, became the 16th player in the world in the FIDE rapid chess rating list. Multiple participant of World Cups, and Superfinals of Russian championship. Inarkiev was taking part in team championships of Germany, China, Turkey, Spain and Greece. Inarkiev is practising aikido, in 2016 he have got the black belt1st dan in aikido. Co-organizer of the chess festival :ru:Башня_Согласия|"Tower of Concord", annually organized by sports club "Adi Ahmad" in Ingushetia from 2016. The main event of the festival is the match Inarkiev played against invited stars - Boris Gelfand in 2016 and 2017, Wei Yi in 2018 and Sergey Karjakin in 2019. From January 2017 till January 2019 Inarkiev was the President of Chess Federation of Ingushetia. During that period the project "Chess in schools" was implemented in the republic in cooperation with Russian chess federation and :ru:Благотворительный_фонд_Елены_и_Геннадия_Тимченко|Timchenko Foundation. Now there're chess lessons in every school of the region.
In the 2017 World Blitz Championship in the game against Magnus Carlsen, Inarkiev was at the centre of the scandal that appeared due to a gap in the rules. When both players had few seconds till the end of the game, Carlsen made a check, but Inarkiev answered with an impossible move also making a check to a Carlsen. Amazingly, Carlsen forgot that he just made a check, and instead of simply stop the clock, and according to the rules for that moment ask the arbiter to count the win because of the opponents illegal move, he moved his king away from the attack. After that, Inarkiev stated that Carlsen made an impossible move and asked the arbiter to adjudge him the victory. The arbiter, unable to figure out the situation, satisfied the request of Inarkiev. 15 minutes after the end of the round, when both players left the playing area and could analyze the final position, the Chief arbiter cancelled this decision, arguing that Carlsen’s move was not technically illegal, and invited the participants to continue the game from the position in which it was stopped. Inarkiev refused to continue the game, saying that he couldn't accept that move made by Carlsen was legal, and the game was counted as lost to him. His following appeal was dismissed. In the discussion that broke out after this incident, the opinion of the arbiters was divided. Many well-known arbiters expressed the opinion that in this case the rule about an illegal position should be applied - there are no legal moves in an illegal position, which means that the game cannot be continued and the arbiter should count the draw as a result in a such game. After this game, in 2018, the rules of the blitz and rapid chess were amended - now, if the arbiter sees the position where the kings of both sides are checked, the arbiter must wait for the completion of the next move, and if an illegal position remains on the board, he must count the draw in such a game. Also, warnings and penalties are currently provided for the first illegal move, and only if the same player will make the illegal move twice the arbiter will count loss to him.
