Person of day   -  18 APRIL 2023

DANIIL DUBOV

DANIIL DUBOV

Daniil Dubov was born on 18th April 1996 in Moscow, where he grew up in a chess family and soon joined the ranks of Caissa’s admirers. 

 “I joined a chess class at six, which is almost too late by modern standards- nowadays, children have a rating by the age of five. I enrolled for no apparent reason: the family had chess tradition. My grandfather was a renowned chess arbiter, my father trained in his youth and became a candidate master. Then, at a family conference, grandfather and grandmother decided that he should study mathematics instead- and father remains grateful for that to this day. But he does like chess- he occasionally plays blitz on the Internet.  

I think I once watched a game between him and grandfather…I basically pestered my father to teach me. So he made me join a chess class. I trained in Orienta School in Perovo. Unfortunately, the situation has changed a little, but back then, everything rested primarily on human enthusiasm. My first trainer was Mikhail Grigoryevich Ryvkin, who managed to ingrain a love for the process into me before I passed into the hands of Vasily Gagarin when I was already a candidate master. He became my coach, my friend and my mentor- we regularly spoke about different topics and he often helped me in tournaments. For example, at the 2013 World Cup in Tromso, I was always gripped by a feeling that each of my advances into the next round overjoyed him more than they overjoyed me.” (D. Dubov) 

A little later, the young chess player trained in the Dvorkovich Parlour with Sergey Dolmatov, and at the age of 14, he began working with Sergei Shipov. This partnership brought him enormous success; he became a grandmaster at fifteen and qualified for the Superfinal at sixteen.  

 “For a fairly long time, I was close to Alexander Morozevich- looking back now, I understand that his contribution to my development cannot be overstated. Perhaps some of his ideas were ahead of my level and I arrived at them after prolonged efforts later on.

Oh, I was also incredibly frustrated that people always added a postscript to my surname: “the grandson of Edward Dubov”. I began to dream that one day people would write about him “grandfather of Daniil Dubov”; my dream came true by the age of 15…” (D.Dubov)

Daniil Dubov became an international master in 2010 and an international grandmaster in 2011. He won multiple prizes in Russian and European youth championship, as well as the “Young Stars of the World” tournament in Kirishi in 2009; that same year, as a member of the Russian team, Daniil won the U16 Olympiad. 

Soon after, success came to the rising star in adult chess. In 2012, Dubov came second in the Russian Championship Higher League and had a successful performance in the Superfinal. The young master surprised Russian fans at the 2013 World Cup: in the first round, Daniil confidently defeated Sergey Fedorchuk 2:0 and in the second round the Muscovite faced the fearsome fighter Ruslan Ponomariov. This turned out to be one of the most intriguing duels of the tournament, since the chess world only recognised the winner after Armageddon, when Dubov’s nerves proved stronger. Daniil was only stopped by AntonKorobov. 

In 2016, Daniil Dubov performed wonderfully in speed competitions. He was the winner of the Russian blitz and rapid team championships and prize-winner in individual tournaments. Afterwards, he came third at the world championship, behind Sergey Karjakin and Magnus Carlsen. Dubov’s rating in classical chess puts him in the top 100 grandmaster in the world, while his blitz rating nears 2800. 

In 2017, Dubov won the Russian Championship Higher League and won the bronze medal in the Superfinal. The young grandmaster gave several memorable interviews to sports.ru and made a successful debut in commentary. 

He was a member of Magnus Carlsen's team during the World Championship Match against Fabiano Caruana (London, 2018). In December of the same year, Daniil Dubov won the World Rapid Championship in Saint Petersburg.

During the quarantine in 2020, Dubov won one of the Magnus Carlsen Tour events and made it to the Final. He became the prize-winner of the Russian Team Championship as a member of Molodezhka (Tyumen). Daniil Dubov won the first FIDE Online Olympiad as a member of the Russian national team. For this achievement, he, among others, was awarded with the medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" II class by the Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

In 2020 and 2021 Daniil won the FIDE Online Chess Olympiads as a member of the Russian national team. In 2022, Dubov became the Russian champion.

Daniil Dubov is a very athletic man: he is very apt at football and can do multiple pull-ups with one hand.