Mark Bluvshtein

Mark Bluvshtein (born 20 April 1988) is a Soviet-born Canadian chess player.

Bluvshtein was Israel under-10 champion (1998) and under-12 champion (1999).

Upon arriving in Canada, he earned a National Master ranking within a few months at age 11, making him the youngest Canadian to achieve this level.

He was training during this time with Yan Teplitsky, who had studied in the famed Russian school run by Mark Dvoretsky before moving to Canada.

Bluvshtein's first major Canadian success came in 2000, when he tied for 2nd-3rd places in the Toronto Closed Championship, with a score of 8/11 points, behind Eduardo Teodoro IV.

His first full international event in Canada was the Toronto Summer International Open 2000, where he made a score of 4½/9.

He claimed clear first place in the Toronto Thanksgiving Open 2000 with 5/6, ahead of several strong masters.

In the Junior Canadian Championship, Montreal 2001, he placed clear second with 7/9, behind winner Yaacov Vaingorten.

In 2001, he won the Canadian grade 7 championship and in the Canadian Youth Championship, held at Sackville, New Brunswick, he took clear first place in the U14 group scoring 6½/7.

He won the 2001 Toronto Christmas Open with 4½/5.

In 2002, Bluvshtein won the Canadian grade 8 championship and made a perfect score of 8/8 in the Canadian Youth Championship (U14 group).

Then, in the Canadian Open Championship, Montreal 2002, he tied for 4th-10th places, with 7½/10, behind only winners

Jean-Marc Degraeve, Pascal Charbonneau, and Jean Hébert.

Bluvshtein's first grandmaster round-robin tournament was the 2002 Montreal International, where he tied for 10th-11th places scoring 4/11; the winner was Degraeve.

Just a couple of weeks later, in the 2nd Chess'n Math Association Futurity in Toronto, he tied for 1st-4th places, with 6/9, along with Yuri Shulman, Walter Arencibia, and Dmitry Tyomkin, missing a norm for the title of Grandmaster by half a point.

In the Toronto Labour Day Open 2002, he tied for first at 5/6 with Goran Milicevic.

In June 2003, Bluvshtein scored his first norm for the title of Grandmaster at a round-robin tournament in Balatonlelle, Hungary, by winning his last three games and finishing with 6½/9.

He scored solidly at the 2003 Guelph International, with 5/9, but he had a rough tournament at the Montreal International, as he could only score 3½/11 in a field which had nine grandmasters out of 12 competitors.

Bluvshtein switched trainers, working with Grandmaster Dmitry Tyomkin for a time, with success.

With funding assistance from chess patron and businessman Sid Belzberg, Bluvshtein was able to work with Israeli Grandmaster Alexander Huzman, and this provided the impetus for his next qualitative advance.

He became the youngest Canadian ever to achieve the title of Grandmaster in 2004, at the age of 16.

He previously achieved the title International Master at the age of 13.

Mark's father Ilia Bluvshtein is a Canadian National Master player himself, and taught his son how to play chess, playing countless games where Mark had material odds.

The Bluvshtein family moved from Russia to Israel when Mark was five years old.

They moved again, to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, six years later, where he attended Newtonbrook Secondary School.

Bluvshtein made a Grandmaster norm at the 2004 Canadian Open Championship in Kapuskasing, where he played eight grandmasters in ten rounds, while scoring 6½/10 to tie for 13th-26th places; he beat Vladimir Epishin and Arencibia, and lost only one game.

The next month, at the 2004 Montreal International, he made his third and final qualifying grandmaster result with 6½/11 to place fourth; the winner was Zahar Efimenko.

Then he placed third, following a tie-break playoff, at the Zonal Canadian Championship in Toronto, with 6½/9, behind co-winners Charbonneau and Eric Lawson.

A couple of months later, Bluvshtein raised his international rating above 2500, completing the requirements for the title of Grandmaster.

Bluvshtein won the Canadian Youth Championship (Under 18 group) in 2005, and tied for first at the Canadian Open Championship at Edmonton 2005, with a score of 8/10.

He defeated Alexei Shirov among others.

Bluvshtein graduated from Newtonbrook in 2006.

In 2006, Bluvshtein tied for 2nd-5th places at the Zonal Canadian Championship in Toronto, with 6½/9, behind champion Igor Zugic.

Bluvshtein shared the title at the First Saturday tournament in Budapest in June 2007, scoring 8/11.

He scored 7/10, unbeaten, in the 2007 Canadian Open Championship in Ottawa.

Staying on for the Canadian Open Chess Championship, also at Sackville, Bluvshtein tied for 3rd-7th places, with 7½/10, behind only winners Tony Miles (in his last tournament before his death a few weeks later) and Larry Christiansen.

A few weeks later, Bluvshtein became the youngest international master in Canadian history, at age 13, when he scored 6/9 at the Zonal Closed Canadian Championship in Montreal.

He tied for 3rd-4th places, behind only winners Kevin Spraggett and Alexandre Lesiège.

He was awarded the title by FIDE at age 16, during the 36th Chess Olympiad, held in Calvià, where he made a further grandmaster norm.

Chess'n Math awarded Bluvshtein $7,000 for becoming a grandmaster.