David Navara

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**David Navara**

Full name	David Navara
Country	Czech Republic
Born	March 27, 1985 (age 22) Prague, Czech Republic

Title	Grandmaster


Rating	2720 (No. 14 on the April 2007 FIDE ratings list)
Peak rating	2726 (October 2006)

David Navara (born March 27, 1985) is an International Grandmaster of chess from the Czech Republic. On the April 2007 FIDE rating list he is 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 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.

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 win against Ruslan Ponomariov and defending draws with black pieces against Kramnik and Topalov and finished in 7th place.

Navara played several matches in Prague, drawing with Anatoly Karpov (+0-0=2) in 2005 and Boris Gelfand (+1-1=2) in 2007.

Since 2004, he studies Logic at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, Charles University in Prague.