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 semi-finals he lost to world #1
Magnus Carlsen, and he lost the third place playoff to world #3
Fabiano Caruana, meaning he finished fourth. Carlsen announced that he would not participate in the
Candidates Tournament 2024, and therefore Abasov, as one of the top three finishers at the World Cup (excluding Carlsen), qualified for the Candidates. Abasov's
second for the Candidates was
Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. He finished last out of eight players, on 3.5/14. In April 2026, Abasov participated in the European Individual Chess Championship 2026. He scored 8.5/11 (+6=5-0) and finished second on tiebreaks. ==Notes==