Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko has been an avid fan of chess from a young age and started playing chess at four. He became an international master at the age of 16 and an international grandmaster in 2005 when he was 19. His best results as a player are the rapid chess champion of Ukraine in 2014 and the classical chess champion of Ukraine in 2016. Ukraine is one of the Top 5 chess-playing countries in the world.He also had the privilege of beating the following players in classical chess: Vasyl Ivanchuk, Alireza Firouzja, Vugar Gashimov, Pentala Harikrishna, Radoslaw Wojtaszek and Viktor Laznicka. All of them were or currently are among the Top 50 players in the world.Mykhaylo got his PhD in mathematics in 2012. He has focused on playing and teaching chess since then, using his solid mathematical background to incorporate logic and a systematic approach to his teaching.
Mykhaylo has been a FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) trainer since 2015 and has coached several national teams of the Netherlands, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ukraine. He was also the official commentator of the world team chess championships at Ankara, Turkey, in 2013 and the FIDE women’s world chess championship match at Lviv, Ukraine, in 2016.
Mykhaylo has been teaching chess since 2011. His students vary from beginner/club level (including regular group lessons for children) all the way to professional grandmasters (like Amin Bassem, Ahmed Adly and Alexander Ipatov).
