GMEvgeniy Najer

Evgeniy Najer was born in Moscow in 1977 and became a grandmaster in 1999. He won the Moscow championship in 1998 and 2003, shared the 2002 US Open title and won Cappelle-la-Grande in 2004. He won consecutive World Opens in Philadelphia in 2008 and 2009.

Najer worked as one of Gata Kamsky's seconds for the 2009 match against Veselin Topalov. He became European champion in Jerusalem in 2015 and won the Aeroflot Open in 2016 on tiebreak ahead of Boris Gelfand. In 2017 he shared first place with Emil Sutovsky at Poikovsky. At the 2019 Grand Swiss he defeated Viswanathan Anand in the opening round. He also coached the Russian women's team and signed the 2022 open letter opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine.