Education
Smirnov finished runner-up in the 2002 Russian Chess Championship.
Smirnov finished runner-up in the 2002 Russian Chess Championship.
In 2004 Smirnov reached the fourth round of the FIDE World Chess Championship, where he lost to Teimour Radjabov and therefore was eliminated from the competition. He knocked out in the previous rounds Lázaro Bruzón, Abobker Elarbi, and Levon Aronian. He competed in the Chess World Cup 2005, where he was eliminated in the first round by Dmitry Bocharov.
In 2010 he tied for 1st–4th with Sergei Yudin, Semen Dvoirys and Sergei Iskusnyh in Pavlodar.
Pavel Smirnov vs Andrei Belozerov, RUS-Cup03 2002, Spanish Game: Morphy Defense (C72), 1-0
Pavel Smirnov vs Levon Aronian, FIDE World Championship 2004, Spanish Game: Berlin Defense, (C67), 1-0.
In 2001 he was a member of the Russian junior team in the first China vs Russia match that took place in Shanghai.