Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

An international prize of Vugar Gashimov has been established in the memory of Azerbaijan’s late chess grandmaster.

The award will be presented for the first time at the 78th Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2016 taking place in Wijk Aan Zee, Netherlands on these days.

The winners of the Fair-play nomination will get a chance to receive the award to be handed on the closing ceremony of the tournament scheduled for January 31.

Jury is consisted of the national grandmaster’s brother Sarkhan Gashimov, tournament director Jeroen van den Berg and the chief arbiter of the competition Pavel Votruba.

Renowned rapid and blitz player, Vugar Gashimov, was one of several highly talented young grandmasters from Azerbaijan who have risen to prominence in world chess in recent years.

The talented chess player won the Azerbaijan national championships of 1995, 1996 and 1998, but these are likely to have been youth championships given his age at the time of these events.

Gashimov’s first significant tournament success was to win the U16 Kasparov Cup in 1999, which he did with a round to spare. In 2002, the 15-year old Vugar earned his first GM norm when he won the category 7 Alushtinskaja Spring International held in Ukraine.

The 19 year-old GM took clear first place at Acropolis 2005 with 6.5/9 and won the category 18 Reggio Emilia in 2010. The Tata Steel 2012 became the last tournament in his life.

After his early successes, Gashimov had to put his activities on hold for a while for a surgery. His disease re-surfaced in 2011, causing him to suddenly lose consciousness during a match against the French national team in the European Championship. Then a long-term treatment in Switzerland and Germany began, but he failed to beat the disease.

Twenty-seven-year-old Vugar passed away on January 11, 2014.

The tragic death of the international grandmaster shocked the majority of Azerbaijanis and almost the entire sports community.

It was the second time last year, that Azerbaijan hosted the Shamkir Chess Tournament, devoted to the late grandmaster, which bring together some of the strongest chess players from around the world.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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