Stewart Haslinger
Stewart at Blackpool 2009
Year of birth 1981
Chess Title Grandmaster (2007)
Rating 2538 (01.07.2009) 2529 (01.09.2009)
Rank in the country 8 (01.07.2009) 10 (01.09.2009)
Stewart Haslinger (born 1981) - English chess, Grandmaster since 2007.
One of his first major chess successes was in 2002 in Torquay, in the British Championships finishing in fourth place (behind Ramachandran Ramesh,Joseph Gallagher and Krishnan Sasikiran), level with players such as Luke McShane and Dibyendu Barua, and also gaining his first Grandmaster norm.
In 2003, he gained his final IM norm and IM title in a round robin tournament in Blackpool.
In the 2005 championships of Great Britain in Douglas, Isle of Man, he was second equal with Stuart Conquest (behind Jonathan Rowson).
In 2007 he achieved 3 further Grandmaster norms, one in the British league team championships (season 2006/07), another by being second (behind Marat Dżumajev) in South Wales in Caerleon, and the third in the individual championships of Great Britain achieving fourth place, equal with among others David Howell (behind Jacob Aagaard,Stephen Gordon and Jonathan Rowson).
In 2008, he achieved several tournament successes, sharing first place in Benidorm (together with Vladimir Burmakin,Boris Avrukh and Eduardo Iturrizaga), in South Wales in Pontypridd (together with Normunds Miezis) and in Hoogeveen (together with Friso Nijboer and Alexander Fier) and outright first in Palma de Mallorca with a tournament performance rating of 2740.
In 2009, he shared first place (together with Michal Krasenkow, Predrag Nikolic and Daniel Fridman) in the tournament GfK Open in Hilversum He was again succesful in winning outright the Unive (previously Essent) chess open tournament with an unbeaten 7.5 out of 9 and beating 3 grandmasters and drawing with 2 on the way.
His highest ranking to datewas reached 1 April 2009, when he was 7th among English Chess players with a rating of 2544.
He has since been joint second (third on tie break) in a very strong tournament in Palma Majorca and made his debut in the Bundeslige (chess not football altho' I know that the latter would have been possibly a bigger thrill) playing for Trier. Travel problems meant he missed the Saturday match but on Sunday 13/12 he played GM Vladimir Gurevich and won in 28 moves of a very attacking and sacrificial game which I have looked thro' and still can't follow completely!
Sites are http://www.schachbund.de/SchachBL/ ;and http://www.sgtrier.de/ where you can get an English translation and the actual game by clicking on left yellow box and 4th game down.
. Stewart has twice played recently for the 1st team in the M'side league with 2 games against fellow grandmaster Nigel Davies of Widnes and after drawing away he beat Nigel in the return fixture. He then went to Germany to play two games in the Bundesliga at the end of February losing the first but then drawing. He returns to Blackpool (with 10 other club members) this coming weekend to defend his Open Title .
He finished equal 2nd at Blackpool in difficult circumstances (see social page for full report) He has since spent another weekend in Germany winning on the saturday and drawing on Sunday. His latest FIDE grade is 2559 slowly creeping up to the top four.