Francisco Vallejo Pons (born 21 August 1982 ) is a Spanish chess grandmaster. He is a five-time Spanish Chess Champion. He achieved the Grandmaster title at the age of 16 years and 9 months. He won the under-18 World Chess Youth Championship in 2000. He won the Ciudad de Leon Masters after defeating Veselin Topalov 3½–2½. In 2013 he tied for first at the European Individual Championship.

Early life

The son of a soldier, he was born in Mahón and grew up in Villacarlos. Several members of his family played chess, and he learned the game from them.

Notable games

On 25 February 2006 he defeated FIDE world champion Veselin Topalov in 56 moves with the black pieces at the SuperGM Linares-Morelia chess tournament. 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4 7.e4 g5 8.Bg3 b5 9.Be2 Bb7 10.0-0 Nbd7 11.Ne5 h5 12.Nxd7 Qxd7 13.Be5 Rh6 14.f3 Qe7 15.a4 a6 16.Qc2 Rd8 17.Rad1 Nd7 18.Bc7 Rc8 19.Bg3 e5 20.d5 b4 21.dxc6 Rhxc6 22.Nd5 Qe6 23.Qd2 h4 24.Bf2

Retirement and return to chess

After a loss in his penultimate round against Sergey Karjakin in the 2012 Bilbao Chess Masters Final, Vallejo announced his retirement from competitive chess. Since then he has made multiple appearances in tournaments, for instance in 2014 Bilbao Chess Masters, as well as competed in country leagues. Vallejo participated in the Grand Prix cycle for 2017–18, after being active in 2016. Having played in the Sharjah and Moscow legs of the event, and finished in the bottom half of the field in both, he had no mathematical chance to qualify for the 2018 Candidates Tournament via the Grand Prix.