Oparin was awarded the title of
Candidate Master in 2007, as a result of his second place, behind
Kirill Alekseenko, at the
European Youth Chess Championships in the Under 10 division. He was awarded the title
International Master (IM) in 2011. The
norms required for the title were achieved in
Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic, Autumn in Livingroom V. Dvorkovich and RSSU-18 IM tournaments in
Moscow in 2009, 2011
Aeroflot Open B tournament, and
First Saturday Tournament of April 2011 in
Budapest.
2010s In May 2012 he finished third, behind
Vladislav Artemiev and Vladimir Belous, at the World Youth Stars tournament in
Kirishi. In July 2013 Oparin played for the silver medal-winning Russian team in the World Youth Under-16 Chess Olympiad in
Chongqin, China. In this competition he also won an individual gold medal as the best player on board 2. In September, he won the
Trieste Open. With this victory he achieved his third and final norm required for the title of Grandmaster (GM), the first two coming from the 2011
Chigorin Memorial and Masters Open of the 2013
Gibraltar Chess Festival. The following month, he won the Russian Junior Championship. Two years later, he won the Russian Higher League, the qualifier for the Superfinal of the
Russian Chess Championship. In this latter event, he scored 5½/11 points. In December 2016, Oparin took part in the Nutcracker Match of the Generations in Moscow. It was a match between two teams, Kings (
Boris Gelfand,
Alexander Morozevich,
Alexei Shirov and
Alexey Dreev) and Princes (
Vladimir Fedoseev,
Daniil Dubov, Vladislav Artemiev and Oparin), held with the
Scheveningen system. Oparin and Shirov were the best players scoring 10 points and played a two-game playoff match. Oparin won by 1½-½ and qualified to play in the
Kortchnoi Zurich Chess Challenge.
2020s In November 2021, Oparin took the 3rd place in the
FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2021, thus becoming the 2nd runner-up behind the champion
Alireza Firouzja and the 1st runner-up
Fabiano Caruana. Oparin and Caruana had both 7.5 points but Oparin had a weaker tiebreak. However, he qualified to take part in the
FIDE Grand Prix 2022. In the first leg of the FIDE Grand Prix 2022, he placed last in Pool B with a 2.5/6 result. In the third leg, he finished second in Pool A with a result of 3.5/6, finishing 14th in the standings with four points. He is a well-known second of Fabiano Caruana. == Notes ==