Zahar Efimenko, age 25, a Ukrainian grandmaster in 2002, was born on 3rd July, 1985. He is no. 53 in the FIDE rating list (May 2010) and his Peak rating is 2688 on January 2009.
Zahar became an under 14 Champion in 1999 at the World Youth Chess Championship in Oropesa del Mar, Spain, and in the same year, he was a member of the Ukraine national youth team that won the U-16 Chess Olympiad in Artek, Ukraine. He uses a sharp style of play that results in exciting, crowd pleasing tactical battles, especially on the white side of Sicilians such as the Dragon and the Najdorf. He is a former champion of homeland Ukraine in 2006, and winner of many strong events in the 2000s like the Hastings challengers.
The Grandmaster from Kramatorsk is at the highest peak of his rating right now, with a high 2688, a culmination of a five year climb that won him 550 ELO points.
Zahar was very active in the European leagues in 2008, playing Russia (where he got a disappointing 3.5/10), Serbia (a solid score of 6.5/10), Ukraine (a strong performance of 6.5/8) and winning a plus 2 in the German Bundesliga. At the strongly fielded Moscow open, he won a tie for second place with 7/9, shared third place with 7.5/10 at the Gib Telecom, and finished high with 7.5/11 at the European championships in Plovdiv.
Later in the same year, Efimenko played for his country at the Olympiad, scoring 6/9 with 2726, holding the fourth board for his country.
