About

I was born on July 9th, 1991 in Varna, Bulgaria. At the age of three, I was already able to read. In the same year, my mother started teaching me German language. One of the things I most appreciate in my parents’ efforts to bring me up is that my father taught me how to play chess, when I was only three, thus giving me the opportunity to become a nationally recognized chess player at such a young age. Since then I have been seriously engaged with chess, which gradually turned into an important part of my life. At the age of 6 years and a half, I played for the first time in a real chess tournament among other strong boys under the age of fourteen and I took the second place.
When I turned seven, I was able to play blindfold chess in several games simultaneously.
At the age of eight, I achieved a record-breaking ELO rating for my age, 1985.
Through the years, I have repeatedly become the national chess champion in different age groups (U10, U12, U14, U16, U18, and U20).

In 2000 in Moscow, Russia, I became the European Individual School Chess Champion U10 with the record result of 6.5 out of 7.
Today, I have over thirty medals from national and international tournaments.
In 2005, I made another interesting personal record by achieving thirty-two wins in a row from national championships (these included two magnificent victories in simuls against the top Bulgarian grandmasters - Veselin Topalov and Kiril Georgiev.)

In 2007, the President of the republic of Bulgaria, Georgi Parvanov, officially awarded me with a one-year scholarship in recognition of my achievements in chess through the years.

At the end of the same year, in one of the most popular chess servers, Playchess.com, I made another significant personal record on the internet, when I managed to defeat one of the strongest computer chess engines in the world, Hiarcs 11.1, in match (at a time control of 1 min. + 0 sec. per move, bullet chess) with a total score of 4 wins and 3 losses. In the same month, I also managed to win a game (in Blitz 4 min. + 1 sec. per move) against the strongest chess player on earth, Garry Kasparov, who plays under the nickname of 'Raffael' on Playchess.com.

In 2008, I achieved my highest FIDE rating of 2443 and the title of FIDE master, as well as two IM norms.

Currently, I work mostly as chess trainer.

I am now working as lecturer for five of the most famous chess giants on the internet, including ChessBase, ICC, Chess.com, ChessLecture.com, and ChessCube.com, while receiving countless offers to comment international opens, train whole national teams for important competitions, and help anyone who needs some improvement in chess without any kind discrimination.

In January, 2010, I was officially invited to ChessBase headquarters in Hamburg to record my first two DVDs on the Sicilian Kan and Queen’s Gambit Accepted. In April, I was invited once again to collaborate with a crew of renowned chess lecturers and Grandmasters to record ChessBase Opening School DVD Series.

There is a great diversity among my regular private students with some of them being already international masters and national champions. My students are pleased with their fast improvement after taking only a few of my high quality chess lessons. Besides working as chess tutor, I also work as chess journalist and commentator.

Here are a few interesting facts about my family. My mom is a chemist. She teaches me languages and other subjects. My dad is a chemistry teacher as well, and is also an experienced chess trainer. He has been my trainer since I was three. We regularly organize lectures and sessions, in which we exchange our opinions on different chess issues and he continues to help me further improve my chess skills.