HSE Student Won European Rapid Chess Championship

Maksim Vavulin, third-year student in the HSE/NES Programme in Economics, has won a major chess competition in Katowice (Poland).

The 2017 European Rapid Chess Championship was the largest of its type in terms of total participants (1,181 players). After an initial coin toss, the players had to play 11 rounds, clocking in at 15 minutes each (10 seconds per move).

Maksim has been a recognized world master since 2013, ranking 370^th on FIDE’s Standard Ranking (out of 2,575 players), but he was not a favorite going into this recent tournament as his rating was less impressive than several of his competitors. Even Maksim, who spent this past semester on exchange at Paris School of Economics, was aware of this prior to the event. He wrote on his social media page: ‘I decided to go and play after I finished my time abroad. I must say, the outcome was a quite welcome surprise.’

In Katowice, Maksim won 10 out of 11 matches, even beating even several grand masters. The title was decided in the final round, where Maksim faced off against Polish opponent Jan-Krzysztof Duda, a former European champion and ranked 32nd in the world by FIDE, as well as a member of the Polish team, which won that country’s first bronze medal in a world championship. Playing as white, Maksim was able to coax a win in the match against this formidable opponent.

This was Maksim’s first big win at an international adult tournament. A year ago, he won second in the FIDE World Youth Under-18 Chess Championship.