Leonid Yudasin ( he, ליאוניד גריגורייביץ' יודסין; russian: Леонид Григорьевич Юдасин, translit=Leonid Grigoryevich Yudasin; born August 8, 1959) is a Soviet-born Israeli
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 dist ...
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013.
The first event recognized as a world championship was the 1886 match ...
twice, in 1991 and 1994.
Career
Yudasin was awarded the title of International Master in 1982, and in 1984 he became the champion of Leningrad, his native city. He went on to gain the USSR Cup for
rapid chess
Fast chess, also known as Speed chess, is a type of chess in which each player is given less time to consider their moves than normal tournament time controls allow. Fast chess is subdivided, by decreasing time controls, into rapid chess, bli ...
in 1988.
Yudasin became a joint winner of the 1990 USSR Championship (with
Alexander Beliavsky
Alexander Genrikhovich Beliavsky (, ua, Олександр Генріхович Бєлявський, sl, Aleksander Henrikovič Beljavski; also romanized ''Belyavsky''; born December 17, 1953) is a Soviet, Ukrainian and Slovenian chess pl ...
,
Evgeny Bareev
Evgeny Ilgizovich Bareev (russian: Евгений Ильгизович Бареев; born 21 November 1966) is a Russian-Canadian chess player and trainer. Awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1989, he was ranked fourth in the FIDE world r ...
and Alexey Vyzmanavin, the title going to Beliavsky on tie-break). He added individual bronze and team gold medals the same year, at the
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 an ...
in
Novi Sad
Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...
, when he represented the USSR and registered the best performance of any of his teammates. He also achieved the title of Grandmaster in 1990. In 1994 and again in 1996, he played under the Israeli flag at the
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
and
Yerevan
Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and i ...
Olympiads, respectively.
A
world championship
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
candidate
A candidate, or nominee, is the prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position; for example:
* to be elected to an office — in this case a candidate selection procedure occurs.
* ...
in 1991 (ranked then at No. 8 in the world), he qualified again in 1994 and this time progressed to the latter stages, losing out to Vladimir Kramnik in the quarterfinals by a score of 2½-4½.
His best international tournament success occurred at León in 1993, where he won ahead of Alexey Vyzmanavin,
Veselin Topalov
Veselin Aleksandrov Topalov (pronounced ; bg, Весели́н Александров Топа́лов; born 15 March 1975) is a Bulgarian chess grandmaster and former FIDE World Chess Champion.
Topalov became FIDE World Chess Champion by wi ...
,
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov ( rus, links=no, Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов, p=ɐnɐˈtolʲɪj jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈkarpəf; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Che ...
and a young Peter Leko. Yudasin's tournament record includes victories at Leningrad 1989,
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
1990,
Pamplona
Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region.
Lying at near above ...
1990/91 (also 1991/92, jointly with
Miguel Illescas
Miguel Illescas Córdoba (born December 3, 1965 in Barcelona) is a Spanish chess grandmaster.
Chess career
Illescas was a highly skilled player as a youngster and became junior champion of Catalonia at the age of 12. A trained computer scienti ...
),
Dos Hermanas
Dos Hermanas () is a Spanish city south of Seville in Andalusia, with a population of 131,317 as of 2015.
History
The city's name, which means "two sisters", dates from its founding in 1248 by King Ferdinand III of Castile and honours Elvir ...
1992, Botvinnik Memorial 1995,
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
Super Tournament 1996 and St. Petersburg White Knights 1998. At Reggio Emilia, he was a joint winner with Dimitri Komarov in 1997/1998 (conceding the title on tie-break) and was the outright winner in 1999/2000.
Yudasin lived in Israel for many years and was twice the Israeli champion, in
Tel-Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...
1994 and
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
1996. He has won tournaments all over the US and took second place at the US Open 1990 and
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
World Open 2001. Since 2002, he has spent most of his time in New York, dominating the weekly Masters' tournament (top money winner), along with the likes of
Hikaru Nakamura
Christopher Hikaru NakamuraJaan Ehlvest, and the late
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz
Aleksander Wojtkiewicz ( lv, Aleksandrs Voitkevičs; January 15, 1963 – July 14, 2006) was a Polish chess Grandmaster (chess), grandmaster. He was born in Latvia. In his early teens he was already a strong player; a student of ex-world champion ...
. In 2004, he won a strong tournament in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
, Canada.
He is also a coach and director of the
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
Chess Academy. His former students include
Varuzhan Akobian
Varuzhan Akobian ( hy, Վարուժան Հակոբյան, born 19 November 1983 in Yerevan, Soviet Union) is an Armenian-born American chess Grandmaster. Originally from Armenia, he now resides in St. Louis. He played on the bronze-medal-winni ...
,
Irina Krush
Irina Borisivna Krush ( uk, Ірина Борисівна Круш; born December 24, 1983) is an American chess Grandmaster. She is the first woman, and as of August 2022 the only woman, to earn the GM title while playing for the United States ...
,
Jennifer Shahade
Jennifer Shahade (born December 31, 1980) is an American chess player, poker player, commentator and writer. She is a two-time United States Women's Champion and has the FIDE title of Woman Grandmaster. Shahade is the author of the books ''Chess ...