Viktor Láznička is a chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 grandmaster from the Czech Republic.

Early moves

After learning the game at age six, he progressed quickly to playing junior tournaments and achieved many prize-winning performances in the national championships across the range of age limits. These included wins in the under-10 category (1997) and the under-12 category (1998 and 1999). He also finished second at the under-18 event in 2001.

At the European Youth Chess Championship

European Youth Chess Championship

Since 1991, the European chess union organises the European Youth Chess Championship in the groups under 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 year. Until 2002, there was also a tournament for the under 20, see European Junior Chess Championship.-Boys winners:...

, held in Herceg Novi

Herceg Novi

Herceg Novi is a coastal town in Montenegro located at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor and at the foot of Mount Orjen. It is the administrative center of the Herceg Novi Municipality with around 33,000 inhabitants...

 in 2005, he was a bronze-medallist in the under-18 category.

Upon leaving school, he enrolled at the Charles University, Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, to study Business Administration.

International competition

In the early part of Láznička's tournament career, he was a joint winner at Olomouc

Olomouc

Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...

 in 2002 and at Mariánské Lázně

Mariánské Lázne

Mariánské Lázně is a spa town in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. The town, surrounded by green mountains, is a mosaic of parks and noble houses...

 in 2003. He was successful in Brno

Brno

Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...

 in both 2005 and 2006, the latter when he won the full national Czech Championship

Czech Chess Championship

The Czech National Chess Championship is the chess competition, which determines the best Czech Republic chess player.-History:First national championships were held before founding of independent Czechoslovakia as the championships of Bohemia every second year between 1905 and 1913...

. This was also the year that he qualified as a grandmaster and commenced his Olympiad

Chess Olympiad

The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...

 career, scoring the best individual result of the Czech team in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

.

In 2007, he was joint winner of the Czech Open (with Vlastimil Babula), held in his home town. He qualified for the Chess World Cup 2007

Chess World Cup 2007

The Chess World Cup 2007 served as a qualification tournament for the World Chess Championship 2009. It was held as a 128-player single-elimination tournament, between 24 November and 16 December 2007, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia....

, but was eliminated in the first round by strong Polish player Bartłomiej Macieja.

In 2008, he shared victory with Krishnan Sasikiran

Krishnan Sasikiran

Krishnan Sasikiran is an Indian chess Grandmaster. Among Indians, he is second, after Viswanathan Anand, No. 6 in Asia & ranked 56th in the world in FIDE rating as on September 2011....

 at Calcutta and was declared winner on tie-break. He then took a share of second place at the EU Individual Open Chess Championship

EU Individual Open Chess Championship

The EU Individual Open Championship was first contested in Cork, Ireland in 2005, under the auspices of organising body, the European Chess Union . The event is open to members of chess federations within the European Union...

 in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, behind Jan Werle

Jan Werle

Jan Werle is a Dutch chess player with the title Grandmaster.-Junior success:He learned the moves at the age of five, after watching his father play with a friend. Rapid progress brought him much junior success across the various age groups of both national and regional championships...

 (and equal with the highly rated Michael Adams and Nigel Short

Nigel Short

Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...

). In December 2009, he tied for 1st-4th with Georg Meier

Georg Meier (chess player)

Georg Meier is a German grandmaster of chess.His top Elo rating is 2667, recorded in January 2011. In December 2009, he tied for 1st-4th with Julio Granda, Viktor Láznička and Kiril Georgiev in the 19th Magistral Pamplona Tournament....

, Julio Granda

Julio Granda

Julio Ernesto Granda Zúñiga is a Peruvian chess Grandmaster.In his coastal town, he learned how to play chess at the very young age of five....

 and Kiril Georgiev

Kiril Georgiev

Kiril Dimitrov Georgiev is a Bulgarian chess master and three times the national champion. He should not be confused with fellow Bulgarian chess player Krum Georgiev....

 in the 19th Magistral Pamplona

Pamplona

Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...

 Tournament. In June 2010, he won the City of Good Wine Rapid tournament in Hustopeče

Hustopece

Hustopeče is a town in southern Moravia of the Czech Republic with 5,956 inhabitants. Hustopeče lies in the Břeclav District and is 25 km northwest of Břeclav.-History:...

.

Láznička has had several coaches during his chess career, but most recently has been tutored by Sergei Movsesian

Sergei Movsesian

Sergei Movsesian is an Armenian chess Grandmaster who used to play for Slovakia, but as of late 2010, Movsesian announced that he plays for his home country of Armenia...

, a high ranking Slovakian player and one of his team-mates in the Czech league.

As of October 2008, he was the Czech Republic's fourth highest rated player, after David Navara

David Navara

David Navara is a chess Grandmaster from Czech Republic. On the April 2007 FIDE rating list he was ranked number 14 in the world with an Elo rating of 2720, making him the highest ranked Czech player....

, Zbyněk Hráček

Zbynek Hrácek

Zbyněk Hráček is an International Grandmaster of chess from the Czech Republic. Czech chess champion 1994, won Zonal tournament Odorhea 1995 and tournaments Pardubice 1993, Altensteig 1995 and Lippstadt 2000. Played for Czechoslovakia in the Chess Olympiads of 1990 and 1992...

 and Vlastimil Babula.

In July 2010, he took clear first place at the World Open Chess Tournament

World Open chess tournament

The World Open chess tournament is an annual open chess tournament played in most editions in Philadelphia and some editions in New York. The inaugural event was a huge success played in New York in 1973 with 732 participants, and was won by Walter Browne....

 with 7.5/9.

External links