Igor Smirnov is a Ukrainian-Saudi Arabian chess Grandmaster and a chess coach. He was born on May 28, 1987, in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, and has lived in Saudi Arabia since 2013. As a player, Smirnov has had significant achievements. At the age of 18, he achieved the Grandmaster title after winning the Zonal 4.2 Chess Championship in UAE, 2014.
Apart from his chess playing achievements, Smirnov has also made a significant contribution as a chess coach with a unique approach to coaching. He has developed a number of chess courses, providing a comprehensive program for training chess students. He believes in the importance of understanding chess from a psychological and cognitive perspective and developed a system of learning based on these principles.
Smirnov has provided several notable strategies that remain popular among many contemporary chess players, including the "Think, Plan, and Win" method and the principle of “The Skill of Thinking”. His methods have significantly influenced the way modern chess is instructed and have made him popular among his students and followers.