He won the 1987 European Junior Chess Championship in Groningen and first achieved international notice by winning the 1988 New York Open scoring 7½/9 points, ahead of a field of grandmasters.

He tied for first place in the 1988 World Junior Chess Championship at Adelaide, but lost the title on tiebreak to Joël Lautier.

[8] His inability to become world champion despite his immense talent and longevity has been attributed to his admittedly poor nerves, demonstrated by blunders such as at the 1994 London Grand Prix blitz, when he failed to complete a strong attack on Viswanathan Anand with a mate in one despite having 0:54 left on the clock.

Due to obligations with FIDE, Ivanchuk and Anand did not participate in the 2002 Dortmund Candidates tournament for the Classical World Chess Championship 2004.

While he won one of the events of the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, his overall performance was not enough to qualify him for the World Chess Championship 2012 candidates tournament.

[10] The tournament was notable for his unusually poor time management (he lost two games on time), as well as his major impact on the leaderboard despite being a tail ender: he managed to defeat both leaders Magnus Carlsen (round 12) and Vladimir Kramnik (round 14), resulting in Carlsen qualifying for the World Chess Championship by tiebreak.

Ivanchuk is well known for his imaginative play, seemingly breaking all principles with sudden sacrifices consisting of deep and immense calculation rather than material balances.

1 spot, but he is a highly emotional player, who takes losses badly, tends to rush critical decisions when under pressure and sometimes lacks motivation.

But in a major upset, Ivanchuk lost his game against Gata Kamsky, causing Ukraine to fall to fourth and miss out on a medal.

He refused to take a doping test and stormed out, risking punishment under FIDE rules and forfeiting his games in the event as had happened in the 2004 Chess Olympiad in Majorca.

[19] Ivanchuk was cleared when it emerged that he had not been warned of the test, and that in his distraught frame of mind, he had not fully understood the arbiter's request.

[20] After a string of unsuccessful performances culminated in his elimination at the early stages of the 2009 World Cup, Ivanchuk announced, in a highly emotional interview, his retirement from professional chess,[21][22] but he soon reversed that decision.

His detailed Olympiad records are as follows:[27] At round one of Linares in 1991, the 21-year-old Ivanchuk gave up both his bishops for knights and then boxed Kasparov, then world champion, into complete passivity.

[31] In 2011, Ivanchuk and his second wife were mugged the day they were set to leave from São Paulo, Brazil, on a plane bound for Spain to finish the second half of the Bilbao Grand Slam Masters.