Beliavsky, Alexander
birthday : 1953.12.17
Slovenia
g 2606

World Champion candidate
USSR Champion

Alexander Beliavsky the Ukrainian grandmaster was born in Lvov, he currently lives in Slovenia and plays for the Olympic team there. Ten years after he has started playing chess he obtained the GM title. Beliavsky won the World Junior Chess Championship in 1973 and the USSR Chess Championship in 1974 and 1990. He won several times the Olympic Championship as member of the USSR team. As a potential future World Champion, Beliavsky qualified for the Candidates matches unfortunately, losing in the quarterfinals to Garry Kasparov (6-3) in 1983.

Near three decades is he in the range of the best players of the world. He is noted for his uncompromising style of play and for his classical opening repertoire. Beliavsky is multi-faceted person he is an excellent player, a first-class endgame study composer, and an acknowledged chess book author. As of January 2008, he is the second oldest person in the world's top 100 players, behind Anatoly Karpov.

Some of his best achievements:
first equal at Baden 1980, first at Tilburg 1981, second equal at Tilburg 1984, joint winner at Wijk aan Zee 1984 and joint second at the same venue a year later.