Miguel Illescas Córdoba

Miguel Illescas Córdoba is a Spanish chess player born in Barcelona. He is married to the great female chess teacher Olga Alexandrova.

He is a specialized journalist, editor of the chess magazine "Peón de Rey" and collaborates daily in the newspaper "La Vanguardia" where he tests readers with different chess moves.

Illescas has founded a chess school "The Chess School of Miguel Illescas " EDAMI in its Spanish abbreviated form. He is a coach, organizes tournaments, simultaneous and other activities related to chess.

In 1986, he obtained the title of international master and in 1988 he became the international grandmaster. In July 1996 he reached an Elo of 2640 points, an was number 30 in the world. Now semi-retired, he remains a top Spanish player.

Miguel Illescas has a universal style of play. In 1996 he was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Order of Sports Merit. His computer science background and brilliant chess career got him hired by IBM in 1997 to develop the program of the chess computer Deep Blue, which would defeat Garry Kasparov in May of that same year. Illescas has also served as a trainer of former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik.

Recent news

Miguel Illescas: My most memorable game

9/6/2020 – An eight-time Spanish Champion, Miguell Illescas has excelled as a chess player, theoretician, educator and promoter. Having defeated a number of chess superstars — Viktor Korchnoi, Artur Yusupov, Veselin Topalov and Judit Polgar, just to name a few — he surely had difficulties choosing his most memorable game. In the end, he went for a win obtained in 1999 at the Dos Hermanas Tournament — his rival was none other than the 12th world champion himself, Anatoly Karpov.

Proposing a new system for top tournaments

6/22/2019 – Entrepreneur, trainer, and Grandmaster Miguel Illescas puts down some thoughts on how to make elite chess touranments more fan friendly. Inspired by the Norway Chess Armageddon experiment, he offers a proposal to improve the format with tweaks to the scoring and time control. We encourage you to offer feedback in the comments below.

Miguel Illescas previews Carlsen vs. Caruana

10/15/2018 – We are only weeks away from the start of the World Championship in London, where Magnus Carlsen meets his latest challenger, the American Fabiano Caruana, and the fans wait impatiently for this impending train collision. It's a match which a priori promises great emotions and high-quality games because we will witness the indisputable numbers 1 and 2 of the world ranking. Grandmaster Miguel Illescas reflects on AlphaZero and wonders if secret preparation tools could make the difference. | Photo: Peón de Rey
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