Valery Salov (born 26 May 1964) is a Russian

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

grandmaster who was ranked third in the world in 1995.

Competitive chess career

Salov was awarded the International Master 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 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 (, ; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, former World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion, ⁣and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 ...

and

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born Garik Kimovich Weinstein on 13 April 1963) is a Russian Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion (1985–2000), political activist and writer. His peak FIDE chess Elo rating system, ra ...

. He qualified twice for the Candidates Tournament for the

World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Gukesh Dommaraju, who defeated the previous champion Ding Liren in the World Chess Championship 2024, 2024 World Chess Championship. ...

. 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 a ...

(+0−1=5). In the Candidates Tournament for the 1996 FIDE World Chess Championship he won his first two matches against Alexander Khalifman (+4−0=2) and Jan Timman (+2−1=5) to reach the third round (Candidates final), where he was defeated by Gata Kamsky (+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, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, 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 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 ( , ), is an international organization based in Switzerland that connects the various national chess federations and acts as the Spor ...

-rated tournaments since January 2000.

Activities since retirement

In 2009, at the Chigorin Chess Club in St. Petersburg, 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 Chess960, also known as Fischer Random Chess, is a chess variant that randomizes the starting position of the pieces on the back rank. It was introduced by former world chess champion Bobby Fischer in 1996 to reduce the emphasis on opening prep ...

(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 or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (). Jewi ...

"ritual" of

Freemasonry Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

, that the Kasparov–Anand match at the World Trade Center 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 Chess players from Wrocław