Nijat Abasov

Nijat Azad oglu Abasov (Nicat Azad oğlu Abasov; born 14 May 1995) is an Azerbaijani chess grandmaster. In October 2023, he reached his all-time-highest rating of 2679 and was ranked No. 58 in the world.

Early years
Abasov was awarded the title of International Master in 2009. He gained his third and final norm required for the title of Grandmaster in the Azerbaijani Solidarity Day event in late December 2010, in which he placed first. FIDE awarded him the title in February 2011.

Professional career
In November 2015, Abasov won the Cultural Village tournament in Wijk aan Zee to qualify for the 2016 Tata Steel Challengers tournament. In this latter he scored 6½ points out of 13. Abasov played on team Azerbaijan 2 in the 42nd Chess Olympiad in Baku. In late December 2016, he won the Zurich Christmas Open on tiebreak from Viktor Láznička, Dennis Wagner, Christian Bauer and Mateusz Bartel. In 2017, Abasov won both the Azerbaijani Chess Championship and the Baku Open tournament.

In October 2019, Nijat earned 6.5 points (+2=9-0) in the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament, finishing 15th out of 154 players. In November that year, Abasov climbed to #93 in the world rankings and entered the FIDE Top 100 for the first time in his career.

In the Chess World Cup 2023, 69th seed Abasov upset 5th seed Anish Giri in the third round. He went on to make it to the semi-finals by defeating 37th seed Peter Svidler in the fourth round, 53rd seed Salem Saleh in the fifth round, and 20th seed Vidit Gujrathi in the quarterfinals. In the semifinals of the world cup, he faced Carlsen, and in the third place playoff his opponent was Fabiano Caruana. Semifinalist Magnus Carlsen announced that he would not participate in the Candidates Tournament 2024, and therefore Abasov, as one of the top 3 players at the World Cup (excluding Carlsen), qualified for the Candidates. Abasov was seconded by Shakhriyar Mamedyarov during his run at the 2024 candidates.