Vladimir Akopian

Vladimir Akopian, born in Baku in 1971, is an Armenian-American chess grandmaster. He won world youth titles in three age groups, the Under-16 in 1986, the Under-18 in 1989 and the World Junior Championship in 1991, and won the Armenian Championship in 1996 and 1997. In 1999 he reached the final of the FIDE knockout World Chess Championship, losing to Alexander Khalifman. He has beaten Garry Kasparov in 2002 and Vladimir Kramnik in 2004, and won the Gibraltar Masters in 2007. He was part of the Armenian teams that won gold at the Chess Olympiads of 2006, 2008 and 2012. He switched to the United States federation in 2021 and won the U.S. Senior Championship in 2024.