Alexander Motylev

Alexander Motylev is a Russian chess grandmaster, former European champion, and former Russian champion. He is also Sergey's Karyakin trainer and one of the coaches of the Russian Men’s national team. In 1995, he won Russian Junior Championship under 16 and, in 1997, for the under 18 level. Motylev was the runner-up in the 1998 European Junior Chess Championship, which was won by Levon Aronian. Then, in 2001, he won the Russian Chess Championship in Elista and played for the national team in the World Team Chess Championship, where he contributed to the team silver medal scoring 2/3. In 2006, he was the joint winner (first on tie-break) of the Corus B Tournament in Wijk aan Zee with Magnus Carlsen and, in June 2009, he won the 10th Karpov tournament (category 18, 2694) in Poikovsky, Russia. Other achievements for Motylev include sharing 2-3 places (2nd on tiebreak) with Lazaro Bruzon, behind Pentala Harikrishna, in the Corus B Tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 2012 and finishing second in the 14th edition of Poikovsky Karpov tournament (category 18, 2685) in 2013. Motylev also won the 2014 European Individual Championship in Yerevan, Armenia with 9/11 and a rating performance of 2872, the best performance in the event's history. Following this event in 2014, he took clear second place, behind Pavel Eljanov, in the B tournament of the Vugar Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir, Azerbaijan. He also placed equal first (second on tiebreak) in the 2015 Russian Championship Higher League with 6.5/9 in Kaliningrad. Recently, in 2017, Motylev won the Russian Rapid Chess Championship in Sochi.