Ilya Mark Gurevich (born February 8, 1972)
is a Soviet-born American
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to disti ...
player.
Born in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, he emigrated to the U.S. in January 1980.
He was a student at Yeshiva Academy in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
.
In 1983, Gurevich won the U.S. National Scholastic Elementary School Chess Championship. He became a chess master at 12 years, 3 months. In 1985, at thirteen, he won the
World Under 14 Championship in
Lomas de Zamora
Lomas de Zamora is a city in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, located south of the City of Buenos Aires and within the metropolitan area of Greater Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Lomas de Zamora Partido and has a population of 111,897.
...
,
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
; as a result of this victory, he was awarded the title of
FIDE Master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating an ...
.
Gurevich won the 1990
World Junior Championship as an 18-year-old. He tied for first place with
Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov (, lv, Aleksejs Širovs; born 4 July 1972) is a Latvian and Spanish chess player. Shirov was ranked number two in the world in 1994.
He won a match against Vladimir Kramnik in 1998 to qualify to play as challenger for the classic ...
and was awarded the win because of his superior tiebreak points; with this victory, Gurevich was awarded the title of
International Master
FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...
.
In 1991 he played on the U.S. team which took the silver medal at the World Under 26 Team Chess Championship in
Maringá, Brazil. In 1993,
FIDE
The International Chess Federation or World Chess Federation, commonly referred to by its French acronym FIDE ( Fédération Internationale des Échecs), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national c ...
awarded him the title of
Grandmaster.
He later became an
options trader.
See also
*
List of Jewish chess players
Jews, Jewish players and Chess theory, theoreticians have long been involved in the game of chess and have significantly contributed to the development of chess, which has been described as the "Jewish National game". Chess gained po ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
*
1972 births
Living people
American chess players
Jewish chess players
Chess grandmasters
World Junior Chess Champions
World Youth Chess Champions
Sportspeople from Kyiv
American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent
Ukrainian Jews
{{US-chess-bio-stub