Oleg Mikhailovich Romanishin ( uk, Олег Михайлович Романишин, translit=Oleh Mykhailovych Romanyshyn; born 10 January 1952) is a Ukrainian
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 ...
Many honours and awards were bestowed on Romanishin as a young man. After winning the European Junior Championship in 1973, he became an
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 ...
the same year. In 1974, Romanishin was a member of the victorious USSR team at the World Student Team Championship held in Teesside,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, where he scored the best result for board 4 (8/9).
The following year, he had a terrific result at the USSR Championship, sharing second place with Boris Gulko, Mikhail Tal and Rafael Vaganian, after Tigran Petrosian. In 1976, his Grandmaster title was ratified.
Romanishin has an impressive collection of tournament victories, including Odessa 1974, Novi Sad 1975, Yerevan 1976,
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
1976/77, Tallinn 1977, Leningrad 1977 (shared with Tal), Gausdal 1979, Polanica Zdroj 1980, Lviv 1981 (shared with Tal), Jurmala 1983, Moscow 1985,
Reggio Emilia
Reggio nell'Emilia ( egl, Rèz; la, Regium Lepidi), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has abou ...
1986 (shared with
Andersson
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Debrecen
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1990. Playing the Hungarian Open Championship at Györ in 1990 he finished two points ahead of the field. Second place finishes at Tilburg 1979 (after
Karpov Karpov (russian: Ка́рпов) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Aleksandr Karpov, Soviet ace, double Hero of the Soviet Union
* Anatoly Karpov (born 1951), Russian chess grandmaster, Undisputed World Chess Champion 1975 ...
) and Dortmund 1982 (after
Hort Hort may refer to:
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) were also important landmarks in his career, as was his third equal finish at Sochi in 1982.
Nowadays less active as a tournament player, Romanishin has nevertheless won smaller events on the grandmaster circuit, such as Solin-Split 2004 and Hotel Petra (Rome) 2005.
At the
Olympiads
An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games.
Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not unti ...
he represented the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
in 1978 and thereafter played for Ukraine through the 1990s, winning a total of 2 silver medals and 2 bronze. At the
European Team Chess Championship
The European Team Championship (often abbreviated in texts and games databases as ''ETC'') is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9. This more ...
s his medal haul has amounted to an incredible 6 gold and 1 silver.
His chess playing style has been described as aggressive and this may be a result of the coaching he received as a junior. Along with a group of other aspiring masters, he was first coached by Viktor Kart (an instructor of the Lviv Sports Academy) and then, as an improver, was assigned a senior master as a tutor/mentor. In his case the master was Mikhail Tal, an ex-world champion noted for his attacking chess.
In respect of
chess opening
A chess opening or simply an opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established theory; the other phases are the middlegame and the endgame. Many opening sequences have standard names such as the "Sicilian Defens ...
theory, he has a reputation for the use of rare, offbeat and sometimes, long since discarded systems. Only by means of deep research and accurate preparation has he been able to employ these openings as weapons to sidestep known theory and fight for the full point. One example is 4.g3 in the Nimzo-Indian Defence. Previously known in the 1930s and revived by Romanishin in the 1970s, the variation now carries his name in opening manuals. The newly popular variations arising from an early Be7 in the
French Defence
The French Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
:1. e4 e6
This is most commonly followed by 2.d4 d5, with Black intending ...c5 soon after, attacking White's and gaining on the . The French has a reputation for solidity ...
, were also pioneered by him (and Australian postal IM John Kellner) in the 1970s and have been further refined by the likes of Morozevich and
Short
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