Born in Ulan-Ude,[2] Russia, Sambuev was awarded by FIDE the titles of International Master in 1999 and Grandmaster in 2006. He immigrated to Toronto, Canada, in June 2007 and moved to Montreal in 2010.[3]
He won the Canadian Closed Championship in 2011 after a two-game playoff against Eric Hansen.[4][5] In 2012, Sambuev again won the championship, earning the right to participate in the FIDE World Cup 2013, where he played Alexander Morozevich in the first round. Sambuev won the first game[6] but lost the second[7] and was eliminated after losing the rapid-play playoff (1½-½).[8]
Sambuev has been a team member at two Olympiads:
Sambuev won the 2017 Canadian Championship (Zonal 2.2) in Montreal. He finished =1st with IM Nikolay Noritsyn in the 9-round Swiss with 8/9.[11] They played four rapid games (15m + 10s) with White winning each time. Sambuev then won a controversial blitz playoff (1.5/0.5). In it, Sambuev kept Noritsyn's captured queen in his hand during a time scramble. Noritsyn used an upside-down rook when he promoted to a queen (as there was no extra queen on the table). The arbiters, mistakenly believing that the queen had been on the table, ruled that the promotion had been to a rook rather than a queen, leading to a win for Sambuev. After the match, Noritsyn appealed to the Chess Federation of Canada, but the appeal was denied.[12][13]
Sambuev played in the 2017 World Cup at Tbilisi where he was eliminated in the first round by Wei Yi.
He was =1st at the 2023 Canadian championship, with Nikolay Noritsyn and Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux.[14]
Sambuev has frequently been the victor or the runner-up at Swiss tournaments in Canada and has been the top-rated Canadian player.[15][1]
Russia (until 2010)
Canada (since 2010)