Ashot Nadanian

Nadanian was born on 19 September 1972 in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, which then was part of the Soviet Union, to Sergei and Irina, both hairdressers.[4] He was taught to play chess by his father when he was seven. His early coach was Rafael Sarkisov, who took him on as a pupil at Spartak in Baku.[5] In his article The Voiceless Old Man Nadanian recollects, that when he was nine or ten there were almost no chess tournaments in which young players could play with seniors and therefore he often went to the park near his house to play chess with older chess lovers. He remembers that in one of these park-battles he played against a mysterious, silent stranger who turned out to be the highly respected chess champion Vladimir Makogonov.[6] In 1986 and 1987 Nadanian won the under-sixteen Azerbaijani championship. With the beginning of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1988, his family was forced to leave Baku and flee to Armenia.[5]

Nadanian played in the Soviet Union Junior Chess Championships of 1987,[7] 1988[8] and 1989,[9] in the Armenian Chess Championships of 1997, 1998 and 1999 (7th–8th places),[10][11] in the 32nd Chess Olympiad in Yerevan 1996,[12] in the 13th European Chess Club Cup 1997,[13] in the Zonal tournament in Panormo 1998, where he shared 7th–11th places out of 72 participants,[14] in the European Individual Chess Championships of 2000[15] and 2014[16] and in the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2013 in Khanty-Mansiysk.[17] In 2014, playing board 4, he helped his team BKMA Yerevan to a silver medal in the Armenian Team Chess Championship.[18]

His other performances:

Nadanian reached his best Elo rating in July 1997 with 2475 Elo points.[38] His best single performance was at Moscow Aeroflot Open, 2002, where he scored five of nine possible points (56%), exceeding his first grandmaster norm by half a point.[39] His second norm came at Moscow 2004, where he scored eight points out of eleven with a performance rating of 2630.[40] His United States Chess Federation (USCF) rating, based on nine games from 1998 New York Open, is 2655.[41]

Nadanian has an imaginative and adventurous style of playing, and even his mistakes, according to Tibor Karolyi, "contain elements of creativity".[42] He likes to create fresh, atypical positions straight from the opening, often employing bizarre maneuvers to achieve his goals. Uncommon chess openings have always been a part of his repertoire (e.g. Sokolsky Opening, Budapest Gambit).[43]

Kingpin magazine called him "a brilliant eccentric".[44] Tibor Karolyi devoted a chapter to him in his 2009 book Genius in the Background and jokingly called him "Kasparov's Half-Brother", as Kasparov and Nadanian were both coached by Alexander Shakarov, and there were similarities in their playing styles. In particular, Karolyi emphasizes their ability to implement effective ideas on the edge of the board, attributing this to the influence of their common chess "father".[45] As an example of flank pawn advances versus a solid centre, John L. Watson in his 2003 book Chess Strategy in Action brings attention to the game Nadanian – Ponomariov, Kiev 1997[46] and calls it "almost satire on rule-breaking", as nine of White's first thirteen moves have been pawn moves and only one of those has been with a central pawn, yet Black's position was extremely difficult.[47]

The 2005 World Cup winner Levon Aronian said of Nadanian: "His passion for beauty, his devotion to the romantic chess school has always been inspiring." Grandmaster Valery Chekhov noted that "along with his positive qualities like very subtle understanding of dynamic positions, very good sense of initiative and quick thinking, Ashot’s play has a few negative facets like weak opening repertoire, bad defence, and the psychological element of the game as well."[1]

Mark Dvoretsky in his book Chess Lessons: Solving Problems & Avoiding Mistakes wrote: "Ashot Nadanian is a multi-talented man, and I have read his book Moyi Shakmaty (My Chess) with great pleasure. He is an interesting player, and informative and objective commentator, and his writing style is "savory". While demonstrating his best games and unexpected and spectacular ideas he has carried over the board, Nadanian never tries to convince us that all his novelties are impeccably correct and supplies his readers with the results of an objective analysis."[48]

Grünfeld Defence
Nadanian Variation

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Na4

Nadanian has contributions to opening theory, with two variations named after him: the Nadanian Variation in the Grünfeld Defence (after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Na4)[49][50] and the Nadanian Attack in the Queen's Pawn Opening (after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 h6 3.c4 g5).[51][52] The first variation has been used by many strong GMs such as Viktor Korchnoi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Bu Xiangzhi, Alexander Riazantsev, Walter Browne, Smbat Lputian, Jonathan Rowson, Andrei Kharlov, Bogdan Lalić, Igor Lysyj, while the second has never enjoyed popularity among top-flight players.[43]

Described by John Donaldson as "the ever inventive creator of novelties",[53] he has made a number of other notable innovations, including:

• 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Be7 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bf4 0–0 6.e3 c5 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.Qc2 Nc6 9.a3 Qa5 10.Ra2;[54]
• 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Be7 7.Bg2 c6 8.Bc3 d5 9.Ne5 Nfd7 10.Nd3;[55]
• 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.g3 e4 5.Ng5 Ng4;[56]
• 1.Nf3 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 e5 4.e3 Nf6 5.d4 e4 6.d5 exf3 7.dxc6 bxc6 8.e4. Aronian, who played this novelty against Caruana in Stavanger 2012 and won a pawn on move 19, said after the game: "This is a move that my second Ashot Nadanian has invented."[57]

Nadanian has contributed analysis to many chess publications throughout the world including the Chess Informant, New In Chess Yearbook, Europe Échecs, 64, Kaissiber and Szachy Chess.[58][59][60][61][62][63] He was a columnist for the Chessville.com website[64] and has also written for ChessBase[65] and the Armenian Chess Academy website.[66]

According to Russian grandmaster Igor Zaitsev, Nadanian is "one of the most profound opening researchers".[67]

After Nadanian graduated from the Armenian State Institute of Physical Culture in 1994, he became a chess trainer.[5] At 26 he became the youngest Honoured Coach of Armenia.[68] Among his students are Grandmasters Gabriel Sargissian,[1] Varuzhan Akobian[69] and Davit G. Petrosian.[10] He has also occasionally helped GM Tigran L. Petrosian.[70]

From December 1999 until August 2001, Nadanian worked as the National Team Coach of Kuwait.[71] Between 2005 and 2010, he was the National Coach of Singapore Men's Team.[72] There he also coached Daniel Fernandez, who later became a grandmaster.[73]

In 2007, Nadanian received the title of FIDE Trainer.[74] In 2017, he was awarded the title of FIDE Senior Trainer (FST), the highest chess trainer title.[75]

At the "Full English Breakfast" website (thefeb.com, podcast #7 Part 1), Levon Aronian refers to Nadanian as his friend and second. Unable to accompany Aronian to the 2011 Wijk aan Zee tournament, they maintained daily contact online.[76] During the entire month of February 2011, Nadanian, together with a team of five grandmasters—Wang Hao, Movsesian, Sargissian, Pashikian and Melkumyan—held training camp in Tsaghkadzor, helping Aronian to prepare for the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship 2012 cycle.[77] At the 2011 Crestbook KC-Conference Aronian noted: "Lots of players are involved in my team, but Ashot Nadanian is absolutely irreplaceable. Besides the work he does himself he manages the whole process, while also planning training sessions."[78] During the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2012 in Wijk aan Zee Aronian referred to Nadanian as his permanent assistant.[79]

Nadanian once said in an interview that one of the joyful events of his life was the ending of the Turin Olympiad in 2006, when his student Sargissian became Olympic champion with the Armenian team and his other student Akobian won bronze with the U.S. team. At the next Olympiad in Dresden the story repeated itself: Sargissian won team gold medal and Akobian won team bronze.[5]

• Nadanian, Ashot (2013). Мои шахматы [My Chess] (in Russian). Дюаль. ISBN 978-99941-2-910-2.

• Grünfeld Defence, Nadanian Variation

• Matanović, Aleksandar (1991), Chess Informant 52, Chess Informant, ISBN 86-7297-025-X
• Matlak, Jacek (1992), III Miedzynarodowy Turniej Szachowy Czestochowa 92 – Open (in Polish)
• Speelman, Jon; Tisdall, Jon; Wade, Bob (1993), Batsford Chess Endings, B. T. Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-4420-7
• Lalić, Bogdan (1998), The Budapest Gambit, Batsford, ISBN 978-0-7134-8456-4
• Matanović, Aleksandar (2000), Chess Informant 79, Chess Informant
• Watson, John L. (2003), Chess Strategy in Action, Gambit, ISBN 1-901983-69-2
• New in Chess Editorial Team (2006), New in Chess Yearbook 78, New in Chess, ISBN 90-5691-160-0
• Moskalenko, Viktor (2008), The Fabulous Budapest Gambit, New In Chess, ISBN 978-90-5691-224-6
• Karolyi, Tibor; Aplin, Nick (2009), Genius in the Background, Quality Chess, ISBN 978-1-906552-37-4
• New in Chess Editorial Team (2010), New in Chess Yearbook 96, New in Chess, ISBN 978-90-5691-303-8
• Aagaard, Jacob (2010), Attacking Manual 2, Quality Chess, ISBN 978-9197600415
• Dvoretsky, Марк (2018), Chess Lessons: Solving Problems & Avoiding Mistakes, Russell Enterprises, ISBN 9781941270707

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• Ashot Nadanian rating card at FIDE
• Ashot Nadanian player profile and games at Chessgames.com
• Ashot Nadanian chess games at 365Chess.com
• Chessmetrics Player Profile: Ashot Nadanian
• Interview with Ashot Nadanian
• Ashot Nadanian's blog