Valery Salov (born 26 May 1964) is a Russian

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 ...

grandmaster who was once ranked the third best player in the world.

Competitive chess career

Salov was awarded the

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 ...

title in 1984 and the Grandmaster title in 1986. He was the World under-17 Champion in 1980 and the European Junior Champion in 1983–84. He shared first place 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 ...

in the 1987 USSR Championship, but he lost the tiebreaker match with Beliavsky (+0−2=2). At the 1988 USSR Championship he finished tied for third with Artur Yusupov, behind

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 Ches ...

and

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

. He qualified twice for the

Candidates Tournament The Candidates Tournament (or in some periods Candidates Matches) is a chess tournament organized by FIDE, chess's international governing body, since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship. The wi ...

for the

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 World Chess ...

. In the 1988 Candidates Tournament for the 1990 Classical Chess World Championship he was defeated in the round of 16 (the first match) by

Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known as ...

(+0−1=5). In the

for the 1996 FIDE World Chess Championship he won his first two matches against

Alexander Khalifman Alexander Valeryevich Khalifman (russian: Алекса́ндр Вале́рьевич Халифма́н; born 18 January 1966) is a Russian chess player and writer. Awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1990, he was FIDE World Chess Ch ...

(+4−0=2) and Jan Timman (+2−1=5) to reach the quarterfinals, where he was defeated by

Gata Kamsky Gata Kamsky ( tt-Cyrl, Гата Камский, italics=no; russian: Гата Камский; born June 2, 1974) is a Soviet-born American chess grandmaster, and a five-time U.S. champion. Kamsky reached the final of the FIDE World Chess Cham ...

(+0−4=3). In 1994, he won both the 16-player Tilburg knockout event and the thematic Polugaevsky 60th Birthday Tournament in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, defeating Karpov with both colors in the latter. A resident of Spain, he tied for 3rd to 5th place in the Category 19 strength

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 Elvira ...

International Tournament in 1997. He has not played any

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 ...

-rated tournaments since January 2000.

Activities since retirement

In 2009, at the Chigorin Chess Club in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Salov delivered lectures in which he took up the role of a current "chess outsider" in order to critique the previous decade in chess. In particular, he discussed the problems raised by the increasing role of computers in chess opening preparation and the prospects for dealing with these problems by means of a shift from traditional chess to

Fischer Random Chess Fischer random chess, also known as Chess960 (often read in this context as 'chess nine-sixty' instead of 'chess nine hundred sixty'), is a variation of the game of chess invented by the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer. Fischer announ ...

(also called Chess960). He also discussed his views on several events in Russian politics. In a long May 2015 interview with Chess-News, he touched on a number of subjects, in particular, how for various reasons he was forced out of competitive chess (due to a lack of invitations), that the Kasparov–Karpov matches were a

Kabbalistic Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...

"ritual" of

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

, that the Kasparov–Anand match at the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may refer to: Buildings * List of World Trade Centers * World Trade Center (2001–present), a building complex that includes five skyscrapers, a ...

was related to the 11 September terrorist attacks in the United States, and other sundry theories. He is currently involved with political economy at universities near Madrid.Валерий Салов: "Призываю всех активнее думать. Происходят очень серьезные процессы" (I urge all to think more actively, things are very serious)
Chess-news.ru. Retrieved on 8 February 2020.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Salov, Valery 1964 births Living people Chess grandmasters World Youth Chess Champions Russian chess players Soviet chess players Sportspeople from Wrocław