| Michele Godena | |
|---|---|
 Godena in 2015 | |
| Country | Italy |
| Born | 30 June 1967 Valdobbiadene, Italy |
| Title | Grandmaster (1996) |
| FIDE rating | 2446 (December 2019) |
| Peak rating | 2561 (March 2010) |
Michele Godena (born 30 June 1967) is an Italian chess player. He achieved the titles of International Master (IM) in 1988 and International Grandmaster (GM) in 1996, following a plus score on board one for Italy at the Chess Olympiad in Yerevan. Godena is a five-time Italian champion.
Godena has won five times the Italian Chess Championship, in 1992, 1993, 1995, 2005 and 2006. He was runner-up in 1990 and 1998. His 2006 victory was closely contested with the then 14-year-old Italian-American prodigy, International Master Fabiano Caruana. Both players finished the contest on 8 points from 11 rounds and Godena triumphed narrowly in the rapid and blitz play-off.
He tied for 1st–4th with Andrei Sokolov, Dražen Sermek and Xie Jun at Cannes 1997. [1] At the Aeroflot Open 2006 in Moscow, Godena tied for 1st–12th in the A2 group, finishing 12th on tiebreak with a rating performance of 2628. [2]
In June 2007, in Arvier, Godena became the champion of the European Union having tied for 1st–2nd with Serbian Nikola Sedlak, who won the tournament on tie-break, but as a non-European Union citizen, could not be awarded the title. In 2016, Godena won the 4th Francophonie Championship in Menton, France edging out Bassem Amin, Pablo Almagro Llamas and Yannick Gozzoli on tiebreak score. [3] He has played many times for his country's Olympiad team and at Elista in 1998 posted a score of 66.7% playing board two.
For many years Italy's strongest player, he recorded his highest ever Elo rating of 2561 in March 2010.
While Godena was once nicknamed "The Italian Machine" by Sergei Shipov, other commentators believe that his disproportionate time management might be holding back his further progress. He frequently uses all of his time in the opening and early middle game, relying on positional knowledge, quickfire technique and instinctive reactions to make the remaining moves in incrementally added time.
As white, he opens with 1.e4 and as black, prefers the Ruy Lopez and Slav/Semi-Slav variations of the Queen's Gambit Declined.
Born in Valdobbiadene, Godena lives in Finale Ligure.
Vladimir Akopian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster.
Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian chess grandmaster.
Viktor (Viorel) Bologan is a Moldovan chess grandmaster and chess author. In 1996, Bologan successfully defended a doctoral thesis on the structure of preparation of high level chess players at the Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism.
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. As of November 2019, he is ranked as No. 1 in Azerbaijan and No. 5 in the world. His personal best rating of 2820 makes him the sixth-highest-rated player of all time in chess history.
Daniel William Gormally is an English chess Grandmaster. His peak rating is 2573, achieved in the January 2006 rating list.
Alexander Anatolyevich Motylev is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was Russian champion in 2001 and European champion in 2014. Motylev is also Sergey Karjakin's trainer and one of the coaches of the Russian national team.
Pavel Eljanov is a Ukrainian chess grandmaster. He has won two team gold medals and one individual silver medal at the Chess Olympiads.
Artyom Timofeev is a Russian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2003.
Ian Alexandrovich Nepomniachtchi is a Russian chess grandmaster.
Nikita Kirillovich Vitiugov is a Russian chess player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. He was a member of the gold-medal winning Russian team at the World Team Chess Championship in 2009 and 2013. Vitiugov won the Gibraltar Masters tournament in 2013 and the Grenke Open in 2017.
The EU Individual Open Championship was first contested in Cork, Ireland in 2005, under the auspices of organising body, the European Chess Union (ECU). The event is open to members of chess federations within the European Union. Exceptionally, at the discretion of the organisers, guest players have also been allowed to compete; for example, when the host nation has non-EU neighbours.
Igor Kurnosov was a Russian chess grandmaster.
Igor Lysyj is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was Russian Chess Champion in 2014.
Tomi Nybäck is a Finnish chess grandmaster and poker player. He won the Finnish Chess Championship in 2008 and is the No. 1 ranked Finnish player as of February 2018.
Dražen Sermek is a Croatian chess player. He holds the title of Grandmaster, which FIDE awarded him in 1994. He previously competed for Slovenia.
Pavel Kotsur is a chess Grandmaster (1996) and FIDE Arbiter (2009) from Kazakhstan.
Kaido Külaots is an Estonian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2001.
Boris Pavlovich Grachev is a Russian chess player. He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 2007. Grachev competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2009, 2011, 2015 and 2017.
Sanan Sjugirov is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was European champion and world champion in his age category. Sjugirov competed in the FIDE World Cup in 2009 and 2015.
Vladislav Mikhailovich Artemiev is a Russian chess player and former chess prodigy. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster in 2014. Artemiev is the 2019 European champion.
