David Navara

Czech chess grandmaster (born 1985)

David Navara (born 27 March 1985) is a Czech chess grandmaster, the highest ranked of his country. Awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2002, he is a 13 time national champion (in 2004, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024).

Navara's career progressed very quickly under coaches like Miloslav Vanka, IM Josef Přibyl, and GMs Luděk Pachman and Vlastimil Jansa, as he won several world medals in youth categories. In 2001, aged 16, he made his debut on the Czech national team in the European Team Chess Championships, where he scored 7/9 points. He received the title Grandmaster one year later, three days before his 17th birthday. In 2003, he won the open section of the Rubinstein Memorial.

Ranked 14th, he finished sixth in the 2004 European Individual Chess Championship in Antalya scoring 7½ points (+5−2=5), including a draw against the eventual champion Vassily Ivanchuk. This result qualified Navara for the 2005 FIDE World Cup, where he was eliminated by Predrag Nikolić in the first round. In 2006, at the 37th Chess Olympiad he scored 8½ points from 12 games against world class competition. The next year, Navara was invited for the first time into the supertournament in Wijk aan Zee, where he replaced Alexander Morozevich. Navara, nicknamed Navara Express by organizers, gained 6½ points in 13 games (+3−3=7), including wins against Ruslan Ponomariov and Magnus Carlsen (and draws with black pieces against Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov), and finished in 7th place. In August 2007 Navara finished first in the Ordix Open, a rapid tournament part of the Chess Classic Mainz festival, with a score of 9½/11 on progressive score tiebreak. The following month, he played in the Czech Coal Carlsbad tournament in Karlovy Vary, where he finished third, scoring half a point behind the winners, Ruslan Ponomariov and Sergei Movsesian. Two months later, Navara participated in the FIDE World Cup. He beat Alexander Ivanov of US in the first round and was defeated by Sergei Rublevsky in the second round after tie breaks. In 2007–2008 Navara played in the "Torneo di Capodanno" in Reggio Emilia, Italy, scoring 3/8 (+1−3=4). He played in the FIDE Grand Prix tournament in Baku in 2008, scoring 5½/13 (+2−4=7). At the 2011 Tata Steel Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Navara competed in the "B" group against other strong GMs like Wesley So, Lê Quang Liêm, Luke McShane, Vladislav Tkachiev, Zahar Efimenko, and others. Navara tied for first place with Luke McShane by finishing with 8½/13. While McShane finished ahead on tie breaks, both players received invitations to the top "A" group next year. Later in the same year, Navara also took part in the FIDE World Cup; he lost to Alexander Grischuk in the quarterfinals of the competition. The following year Navara won the individual gold medal on board two at the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul playing for the Czech team. He won the European Blitz Chess Championship in 2014. In April 2018, he participated in the fifth edition of Shamkir Chess, finishing tenth with a score of 2½/9 (+0−4=5). as of 2022, Navara won 9 national blitz chess championships, most recently the 2019 Czech Blitz Championship with a score of 14/15. Navara became European blitz chess champion for the second time in 2022, finishing with 17½/22 in Katowice. He defended his European blitz title a year later in Zagreb with 11½/13.

Since 2003 Navara has played several matches against top players in Prague at the ČEZ Chess Trophy festival. Year Opponent Winner Result Notes Reference 2003 Viktor Korchnoi Navara 1½–½ 2004 Alexei Shirov Shirov ½–1½ 2007 Nigel Short Navara 7–3 Ten games of rapid chess of which four games were Chess960. 2008 Vladimir Kramnik Kramnik 2½–5½ Rapid chess 2009 Vasyl Ivanchuk Ivanchuk 2½–5½ Rapid chess 2010 Judit Polgar Polgar 2–6 Rapid chess 2011 Sergei Movsesian Navara 3½–2½ Rapid chess 2012 Peter Svidler Svidler 1–3 2013 Hou Yifan Hou 2–2 The games were drawn but Hou Yifan won the armageddon game played as a tiebreak. 2014 Hikaru Nakamura Nakamura ½–3½ 2015 Wesley So So 1–3 2016 Richárd Rapport Rapport 1½–2½ 2017Vasyl IvanchukIvanchuk4½–7½Rapid chess2018Pentala HarikrishnaHarikrishna5–7Rapid chess2019Ding LirenDing3–7Rapid chess