Bartłomiej (Bartek) Macieja (born 4 October 1977) is a Polish chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM).

Bartłomiej Macieja
Bartłomiej Macieja, Lublin 2010
CountryPoland
Born (1977-10-04) 4 October 1977 (age 46)
Warsaw, Poland
TitleGrandmaster (1998)
FIDE rating2520 (April 2024)
Peak rating2653 (January 2004)
Peak rankingNo. 40 (January 2004)

He is married to Mexican chess master Alejandra Guerrero Rodríguez.[1]

He currently serves as the head chess coach for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.[2]

Career edit

Born in Warsaw, he was Polish Under-18 champion in 1994, and National champion of Poland in 2004 and 2009.

Macieja played his first international tournament at Bydgoszcz in 1985.[3] In 1995, he won in Zlín and in 1996, finished first in Budapest. He tied for 1st-4th places with Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Vlastimil Babula and Zoltán Almási at the Krynica 1998 (zonal tournament). A four times qualifier for the FIDE World Championship finals (Las Vegas 1999, New Delhi 2000, Moscow 2001 and Tripoli 2004), at Delhi he beat Jonathan Speelman, Michał Krasenkow, and Alexander Beliavsky but lost in 4th round to Viswanathan Anand.[4][5][6][7]

Macieja won the European Championship at Batumi 2002<[8] and tied for 2nd-3rd with Viktor Korchnoi, behind Alexei Shirov, at Reykjavík 2003. He was 5-times European Team Vice-Champion (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005).

In 2003, Macieja played an 8 games match against former world champion Karpov which he lost 6–2.[9]

He played for Poland in six Chess Olympiads.

Awarded the International Master title in 1996, and the Grandmaster title in 1999.

He played at Alzicapital's team in Spain, national champion in 2010.

In opening theory, Macieja has made contributions to the Classical Variation of the Nimzo Indian Defense. After 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 c5 5.dxc5 0-0 6.a3 Bxc5 7.Nf3, Macieja popularized 7...b6. David Vigorito has called this line the "Macieja Variation" and considers it Black's best try in the 4...c5 defense against 4.Qc2.[10]

References edit

  1. ^ Glodek, Waldemar (26 February 2013). "Chess Champion, Bartlomiej "Bartek" Macieja is the new Coach of UTB & TSC Chess Team". Polish Club Online. Retrieved 7 September 2018.
  2. ^ "UTRGV Chess Team as of September 2021". UTRGV.
  3. ^ "Teimour Radjabov Vs Bartlomiej Macieja - How to be a Grandmaster". Chess Videos, Chess DVDs, Chess Software and more. 21 September 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  4. ^ "World Chess Championship1999 FIDE Knockout Matches". Fide.com. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  5. ^ "World Chess Championship2001-02 FIDE Knockout Matches". Fide.com. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  6. ^ "World Chess Championship2000 FIDE Knockout Matches". Fide.com. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  7. ^ "World Chess Championship2004 FIDE Knockout Matches". Fide.com. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  8. ^ "European Individual Men Championship 2002". Chess Siberia. Retrieved 4 February 2023.
  9. ^ "Karpov-Macieja Match". Archived from the original on 8 June 2011. Retrieved 9 January 2010.
  10. ^ Emms, John (30 April 2010). "Nimzo & Benoni Update April 2010". ChessPublishing. Archived from the original on 4 May 2010. Retrieved 2 May 2010.

External links edit