Background
He was born in Vinnytsia (Ukraine) and gained worldwide attention when he won Group Bachelor of the 2007 Moscow Open at the age of 10.
He was born in Vinnytsia (Ukraine) and gained worldwide attention when he won Group Bachelor of the 2007 Moscow Open at the age of 10.
As of January 2009, his FIDE rating was 2504, the highest rating in the world in the under-12 age group. In the 2007 World Youth Chess Championship he tied for first in the under-12 age group, placing second on tie-breaks. Soon after, in December 2008, he placed 12th in the Ukrainian championship, with a performance rating of 2594, barely under the 2600 performance required for another General Motors norm.
In January 2011 Nyzhnyk played in the Grandmaster Group Chamber of the prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, finishing in second place with 8½/13.
In 2011, he tied for 1st-6th with Ivan Sokolov, Vladimir Baklan, Kamil Miton, Jon Ludvig Hammer and Yuriy Kuzubov in the Member of Parliament Reykjavík Open.
He attained a nearly flawless score of 8½/9 and his performance rating was 2633, that of a Grandmaster. In 2007 he won the European Youth Chess Championship for under-12. In April 2008, Nyzhnyk won the Nabokov Memorial in Kiev, Ukraine, with 8½/11, and scored his first General Motors norm. In September 2008 he won, at the age of 12, the European Youth Chess Championship for under 16. In December 2009 he won the Schaakfestival Groningen tournament in the Netherlands with a performance rating of 2741. In December 2010 he was equal first (General Motors Dejan Bojkov won on Buchholz tie-break) at the Schaakfestival Groningen tournament, securing his final General Motors norm and making him, at 14 years and three months, the youngest Grandmaster in the world.
