diagonal: Biography of a Chess Professional
Milov, Vadim, Grandmaster born in Ufa, Russia (1.8.1972). Became an Israeli citizen in 1991, living in Tel Aviv, later moving to Switzerland, he got the Swiss passeport finally.
GM since 1993, all three GM norms made within one year: Biel Open 1993, Berlin Summer Open 1993, Budapest GM 1993.
• Russian Junior Champion in 1988 and 1989
• Silver Medalist at World Junior Championship in Buenos Aires 1992 (joint with Pablo Zarnicki who won on tie-break, 1.5 points ahead of a shared third crowd)
• Swiss Chess Champion in 2015 and Bronze Medalist at National Swiss Championship in 2014 (then Vadim Milov’s first participation)
Major achievements (selection):
Won or shared first at Biel Open 1993 (playing for Israel, clear first as IM, achieving GM norm), Zürcher Weihnachtsopen (Nova-Park Open) 1993 (1.-6. and first on tie-break, winning as a GM), Bad Ragaz ’Grand-Prix Suisse Final’ (closed round robin) 1994, <Biel GM Invitation 1996> (joint with then Fide World Champion Anatoly Karpov), above Ehlvest, Andersson, Almasi, Lautier, Glek, Portisch, Tukmakov, Romanishin, Onischuk, and Miles, who was sole last of twelve players), Isle of Man (Monarch Assurance) Open 1995 (1./5., as 4. on tie-break behind winner Julian Hodgson, Miles, and Sadler), Groningen GM Invitation 1998 (joint with Sergei Tiviakov), Australia Open Championship 1999 (clear first), Biel Open 1999 for the second time (1-0 vs. Yehuda Grünfeld in the first final game, normal time, according to System Swiss Chess Tour), Aeroflot Open, Moscow 2002 (as shared 1./5. finally on fifth position, Gregory Kaidanov won this first edition of the Aeroflot after an extra play-off battle), Santo Domingo Open (Great Nazir Atallah Cup) 2003 (Milov won the event after making the highest progressive score, nine players finished on 7.5/10), North American Open in Las Vegas 2003 (1.-6. (3.), Alexander Shabalov won on tie-break), First Ashdod Chess Festival / Israel International Open Chess Championship 2003 (1.4., Alexander Huzman best on tie-break), Dos Hermanas Open 2004 (clear first), the traditional U.S. Open Chess Championship played in Phoenix, Arizone 2005 (shared with Joel Benjamin, over 500 players), <Corsica Masters (Rapid), Bastia and Ajaccio 2005> (swiss system in the preliminaries, followed by knock-out modus, mix of players invited and qualified from the Open, Vadim Milov beating Vishy Anand in the final, Anand had won this event previously five times in a row), Chicago Open 2005 (1./4., with Igor Novikov winning the title on a speed playoff game over Milov), Chicago Open 2006 (1./4., this time as first, defeating Kamil Miton in a speed playoff game), Chicago Open 2007 (1./2., again as first, defeating Yuri Shulman in an Armageddon tiebreaker), World Open in Philadelphia 2006 (1./9. nine players tied for first place, among them Gata Kamsky who was winning after play-off), San Marino Open 2006 (Milov won on tie-break from Varuzhan Akobian), Morelia Open 2007 (winning on tie-break with shared Ivan Cheparinov), Gibraltar (then Gibtelecom) Festival 2009 (shared 1./2. with Peter Svidler, who won the play-off). Milov also won many Open Festivals in Switzerland: eg. in Geneva, Lausanne, at the Winterthurer Schachwoche or at the Baden Stadtcasino.
A participant in the FIDE World Chess Championships in 1999, 2001 and 2005. A participant in the 1994 Olympiad for Israel and in 2000 for Switzerland. In the Swiss Team Chess Championship, he plays on board 1 for the Schachgesellschaft Luzern.
<Biggest success>: Biel 1996 co-winning with Anatoly Karpov
http://www.chessfocus.com/tournamen...
Rapid:
Corsica Masters in 2005, beating Vishy Anand in the final
Best ELO rating: 2705 in 2008 (list of July). Best ELO ranking: 22th in 2004 (list of July and list of October)
Source: DIE SCHACHWOCHE, chess weekly, Switzerland (doesn't exist any longer), THE WEEK IN CHESS (TWIC) by Mark Crowther, and FIDE homepage