Sad news comes today of the passing of Azeri grandmaster Vugar Gashimov, who died yesterday (Friday - January 10). He had been in the hospital for a year and a half, and had been suffering from brain problems for a long time.
From page 266 of the Reggio Emilia 2007/2008 tournament book by Mihail Marin and Yuri Garrett:
Vugar's talent was clear from the start. With the help of IMs Rauf Gadjily and Anar Allahverdev, his first successes arrived at age 9: he was Azeri champion for his age group, and runner-up at both the European and World U10 Championships (1996). In 1998, as a mere 12-year-old, Vugar was awarded the IM title. At Christmas that same year, as Vugar proudly relates, he decided to become a chess professional after meeting the President of Azerbaijan, Hejdar Alev.
Unfortunately, in February 2000 [DM: five months before his 14th birthday], the first symptoms of a devastating form of epilepsy began to appear and Vugar was repeatedly troubled by this illness. This is probably why the GM title arrived "only" in 2002, when Vugar was all of 16 years old. In 2005 Vugar underwent a successful operation on his brain at the University of Bonn (two previous surgeries, performed in Turkey in 2004, had not solved all of his problems). Not surprisingly, his chess career leapt forward from this moment onwards.
Indeed, while overshadowed by his countrymen Teimour Radjabov and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Gashimov reached a fantastic peak rating of 2761 in January of 2012. Unfortunately, that month he played in his final tournaments (plus a pair of Bundesliga games in early February). He was diagnosed later that year with a brain tumor, and apparently he struggled with that up until it took his life last night.
To all accounts Gashimov was a pleasant individual, the kind of player and person you want to root for. I'm sure tributes will pour in over the next few days, but for now here are reports on ChessVibes and ChessBase.
Rest in peace.