David Navara

David Navara (born March 27, 1985) is a chess Grandmaster from Czech Republic. On the April 2007 FIDE rating list he was ranked number 14 in the world with an Elo rating of 2720, making him the highest ranked Czech player. His career was progressing very fast under coaches like Luděk Pachman or Vlastimil Jansa, as he won several world medals in youth categories. In 2001, aged 16, he got 7 of 9 in the European Team Championships. One year later, three days before his 17th birthday, he received the Grandmaster title, next year he won open tournament in Polanica Zdrój. Ranked 14th, he finished sixth in the 2004 Fifth European Individual Chess Championship in Antalya with 7.5 points (+5−2=5), including a draw against the eventual champion Vassily Ivanchuk. Navara won the Czech Chess Championship in 2004 and 2005. In 2005, Navara participated in the World Chess Cup, but was eliminated by Predrag Nikolić in the first round. He was very successful in the 37th Chess Olympiad 2006, having 8.5 points from 12 games against world-class competition. Navara played several matches in Prague, drawing with Anatoly Karpov (+0−0=2) in 2005 and Boris Gelfand (+1−1=2) in 2006 and winning against Nigel Short (+3-0=3) in 2007. In 2007 he was invited for the first time into supertournament in Wijk aan Zee, where he replaced Alexander Morozevich. Navara, nicknamed Navara Express by organizers, won 6.5 points of 13 games (+3−3=7) including wins against Ruslan Ponomariov and Magnus Carlsen and defending draws with black pieces against Kramnik and Topalov and finished in 7th place. In August 2007 Navara finished first in the big Ordix Open with a score of 9.5/11 on progressive score tiebreak. In September he played in Karlovy Vary tourney where he finished 3rd half a point behind the winners Ponomariov and Movsesian. He also participated in the European Team Chess Championship where he scored 6 points out of 9 game on the first board for the Czech team. In November 2007 Navara participated in the World Chess Cup. He beat Ivanov of US in the first round but was defeated in the tie-breaks by Rublevsky in the second round. In 2007-2008 Navara played in the Torneo di Capodanno in Italy, scoring 3/8 (+1 -3 =4). He is now playing in the first Baku Grand Prix Tournament in 2008. Navara currently studies Logic at Charles University in Prague.