GMMerab Gagunashvili

Merab Gagunashvili was born in Tbilisi in 1985. He won silver at the 2001 World Junior Championship and became a grandmaster the following year, aged 17. He has won the Georgian championship twice. At the 2004 FIDE knockout world championship he was eliminated in the first round by Smbat Lputian. He represented Georgia at the Olympiads of 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2010.

Gagunashvili won the 2006-07 Hastings tournament on tiebreak ahead of defending champion Valeriy Neverov after both scored 7/9. He won the Tbilisi Municipality Cup in 2010. In 2011 he shared first place at the Fajr Open with Gadir Guseinov, Evgeny Gleizerov and Sergei Tiviakov.