Vladislav Tkachiev

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Vladislav Tkachiev (In Russian: Владислав Ткачев, born Moscow November 9, 1973) is a French-Russian-Kazakhstani chess player.

In 1982, he moved to Kazakhstan with his parents and learnt to play chess a year later. A winner of the Kazakhstani Youth Championship in 1985, he went on to represent Kazakhstan at the 1992 Chess Olympiad in Manila and was twice the national champion.

International Master and International Grandmaster titles were awarded to him in 1993 and 1996 respectively. Now living in Cannes, Tkachiev has taken French citizenship and won the 2006 French Chess Championship, held at Besançon, August 14-26. His victory included a thrilling rapidplay play-off against Laurent Fressinet.

He also reached the semi-finals of the Russian Chess Championship in 2005 and won the Moscow Blitz Superfinal in 2004, ahead of Alexander Morozevich. Other noteworthy victories include Oakham 1993, Cannes 1996 (and 1999), Isle of Man 1996 and Makarska 1997.

In matchplay, he has defeated Alberto David 6-2 (+4=4-0) in 1999 and also beat the Dutch player John van der Wiel by the wider margin of 7-3 (+5=4-1). In 2000, his (Cannes) match against Jeroen Piket ended in a 4-4 draw (+2=4-2).

On the July 2006 Elo rating list, he is registered as 2645.

Tkachiev admits that he leads a racy, if not hedonistic, lifestyle and finds it difficult to cope with lengthy tournaments at long time controls. His passion is therefore for blitz chess and this appears also to be his real strength.