Aleksandr Nikitin, a Russian chess player, coach, and theorist, was born on January 27, 1935. Nikitin was born in Moscow and graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. After that, he worked at the MPEI Special Design Bureau on a production.
Nikitin competed in the 1959 USSR Chess Championship, then worked as a coach alongside Igor Bondarevsky in 1963. He met Garry Kasparov in 1973, and for the following three years, Nikitin was his chess instructor until 1990.
In the late 1990s, Nikitin worked as Étienne Bacrot’s coach. He was awarded the FIDE title of International Master in 1993. Nikitin was also named Honored Coach of the Soviet Union. At the age of 87, Nikitin died on June 5, 2022.
A strong International Master himself, Nikitin retired from chess at some point, concentrating on scientific research, but returned to the game he loved and became one of the most distinguished chess coaches in history.
He met very young Candidate Master Garik Kasparov back in 1975, and it became a turning point for both of them. Nikitin and Kasparov came a long way together and separated only at the beginning of the 1990s.
But there were great achievements after that as well. Dmitry Jakovenko, who was blessed to work with Nikitin from a very young age, made his way up to the world’s top-5.
Nikitin also productively worked with the then strongest junior in the world Etienne Bacrot. I remember playing a match with Etienne: after the final game was over, Nikitin came up on the stage and joined our postmortem analysis. I was the European Champion at the time; Bacrot was an up-and-coming young star rated 2650+, but this quiet elderly gent, aged 66, was on par with us.
Is Aleksander Nikitin Married?
There are no details about his marital status. He may be married or unmarried. There are also no rumors about his wife and girlfriend.
