Biography

Babakuli Annakov was born in 1972 in the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. He started getting involved heavily in chess at the age of 10 and became a Grandmaster in 1997. His first coach Hakim Shakirov, who worked with him for 3 years from 1982-1985, is the Honored Coach of Turkmenistan.

GM Annakov attended the prestigious Olympic Reserve School from 1985 to 1991 (Coaches M.M. Yudovich jr. and R. I. Kimelfeld) in Moscow, and graduated from the Russian State Academy of Physical Culture and Sport in Moscow in 1994. GM Annakov was the co-winner of Foxwoods Open 2000, the 2003 World Open, the Texas State Champion from 2001 to 2003, the 2001 and 2002 Southwest Open Champion, and the 2004 Texas Masters Tournament Champion. He also qualified for and played in many international events like the World Olympiad (Manila 1992, Moscow 1994) and the World Junior Championship in 1992.

Starting from 2004 active coach.

Coach of 3 Grandmasters and many titled players (will be on students sucess page)

• Gm Darwin Yang (from 2005 till 2008)
• Gm Jeffery Xiong (from Jul 2008 till Jan 2017)
• Gm Ruifeng Li (from Sep 2010 till Jun 2017)
• IM Joshua Sheng (from Feb 2012 till Jan 2015)
• FM Dachey Lin (from Jun 2005 till Jan 2018)
• WIM Evelyn Zhu (from 2017 till current time)

Chess coach at St. Mark's School of Texas from 2005 untill now
Chess coach at The Hockaday school from 2005 untill now