GMZoltan Almasi

Zoltán Almási was born in 1976 and became a grandmaster in 1993. He won the Hungarian championship nine times between 1995 and 2019. He represented Hungary at thirteen consecutive Olympiads from 1994 to 2018, helping the team win silver in 2002 and 2014. He also earned individual Olympiad silver medals in 2010 and 2016. His tournament victories included Reggio Emilia in 2008 and the Capablanca Memorial in 2013. In 2010 he became European rapid champion after winning tiebreak matches against Alexei Shirov and Vugar Gashimov. He won the blindfold section of the 2011 SportAccord World Mind Games. His early use of the Berlin Defence helped inspire Vladimir Kramnik’s adoption of the opening for the 2000 world championship match.