Alexandre Dinerchtein

Infobox Go player
playername=Alexandre Dinerchtein
fullname=Alexandre Dinerchtein
dateofbirth=birth date and age|1980|4|19
cityofbirth=Kazan
countryofbirth=Russia flagicon|Russia
residence=South Korea flagicon|South Korea
teacher=Cheon Poong-Jo
rank=3 dan
affiliation=Hanguk Kiwon

Alexandre Grigorievich Dinerchtein ("Александр Григорьевич Динерштейн", born April 19, 1980) is a professional Go player from Russia. He is one of only 8 non-Asian players to reach professional status, which he achieved in 2002 at the Hanguk Kiwon (Korean Professional Go Association). He has won the European Championship 6 times between 1999 and 2005.

Biography

Early life

Dinierchtieijn started playing go in 1986, when he was just 6 years old. He was born and raised in Kazan, Russia where he grew up around strong Russian Go players, such as Ivan Detkov and Valeryi Solovyev. He first learned Go from his father. He was both a chess and Go player, but by the age of 10 he stopped playing chess and went deeper into Go with his new teacher Valeryi Shikshin.

Move to Korea

In 1996, ten years after he started learning Go, he was invited by Cheon Poong-jo of the Hanguk Kiwon to study Go in Seoul. Dinerchtein moved to Korea and started to live in one of the biggest Go schools. He studied Go with several young Korean players that have since risen to fame, including Pak Yeong-hun —whom he beat once in 1998—, Park Chi-eun, Lee Chang-ung and Ko Geuntae.

Becoming professional

In 2002 Alexandre made history by becoming the first Russian Go player to be promoted to professional status, alongside Svetlana Shikshina. Both players were promoted by special recommendation. A feat achieved by very few non-Asian players. He has since started a career in teaching Go to western players.

List of Achievements

* One of the very few non-Asian players to reach professional playing strength.
* Six time European Champion (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005)
* Winner of several top European events, including the European Ing Cup (2001, 2002, 2005), European Go Oza (2002, 2005, 2008) and European Masters (2005,2007).
* Dinerchtein defeated O Rissei, 9 dan professional and one of Japan's strongest players.

References

* [http://www.breakfast.go4go.net/ Dinerchtein Homepage] , including details of his early life and career.
* [http://gemma.ujf.cas.cz/~cieply/GO/gor.html European Go rating list] , on which Dinerchtein is one of the top players.

External links

* [http://breakfast.go4go.net/ Alexandre Dinerchtein's homepage] , where he offers teaching services.
* [http://gogame.info/ the "Goama" newsletter] . Alexandre Dinerchtein is the main editor.
* [http://play.baduk.org/ Go playing strength test] by Alexandre Dinerchtein.
* [http://style.baduk.org/ Style of Go test] by Alexandre Dinerchtein.