Yuri Sergeyevich Balashov (; born 12 March 1949) 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 ...

player. He was awarded the title of Grandmaster by

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 ...

in 1973.

Chess career

Born in

Shadrinsk Shadrinsk () is a town in Kurgan Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Iset River ( Ob's basin) northwest of Kurgan. Population: History Shadrinsk was founded in 1662 as an agricultural and trade settlement. Shadrinsk hosted th ...

, Balashov was awarded the grandmaster title in 1973. Balashov was champion of Moscow in 1970 and runner-up to

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 ...

in the 1976 USSR Championship. In 1977, he won Lithuanian Championship. He tied for first place at Lone Pine 1977 and at

Wijk aan Zee Wijk aan Zee (; ) is a village on the coast of the North Sea in the municipality of Beverwijk, the province of North Holland of the Netherlands. The prestigious Tata Steel Chess Tournament (formerly called the Corus chess tournament or the Hoogove ...

1982. In 2014, he won the Senior Tournament at the Moscow Open and tied with Anatoly Vaisser, Viktor Kupreichuk and Herman Claudius van Riemsdijk for first in the World Senior Championship in the 65+ section. Balashov took the silver medal on tiebreak. In the 2018 edition he tied with

Vlastimil Jansa Vlastimil Jansa (born 27 November 1942) is a Czech chess player. He was awarded the titles of International Master, in 1965, and Grandmaster, in 1974, by FIDE. Life and career Jansa was born on 27 November 1942 in Prague. He learned chess whil ...

for first and again took silver on tiebreak. Balashov represented the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in several team events. He played on the second board for the USSR team at the 1971, 1972, and 1974 World Student Team Championships, winning the second board individual gold in 1971, when he was 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 ...

, with a score of 6½/8 points. Balashov played in four

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, 1970, 1973, 1977, and 1980, winning the individual gold on the fifth board in 1977. At the

24th Chess Olympiad The 24th Chess Olympiad (), organized by FIDE and comprising an open and a women's tournament, as well as several other events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between November 20 and December 6, 1980, at the Mediterranean Confer ...

in 1980, he scored 7½/10 as the first board reserve to help the USSR team win the gold medal. Balashov played for team "Russia 1" which won the European Senior Team Championship in 2014. He also played for the gold medal-winning Russian team at the World Senior Team Championships in the 65+ section in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019.

Chess strength

In the 1970s and early 1980s he was one of the top 25 chess players in the world. According to

Chessmetrics Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo and Edo rating systems. Implementation Chessmetrics is a weighted average of past performance. The score considers a player's ...

, at his peak in July 1977 Balashov's play was equivalent to a rating of 2715, and he was ranked number 11 in the world. His best single performance was at Moscow (URS Championship), 1976, where he scored 10½/16 possible points (66%) against 2688-rated opposition, for a

performance rating The PR (performance rating, P-rating, or Pentium rating) system was a figure of merit developed by AMD, Cyrix, IBM Microelectronics and SGS-Thomson in the mid-1990s as a method of comparing their x86 processors to those of rival Intel. The idea ...

of 2773.Moscow (URS Championship), 1976
. Chessmetrics.com. Retrieved on 2012-11-07. Unfortunately for his chess-playing career, he had to spend a lot of time assisting Karpov at world championship matches and other events as a second and it has taken its toll on his career as a player.

Trainer

In 1992, he was

Boris Spassky Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigra ...

's second in Yugoslavia during the "Revenge Match of the 20th century" against

Bobby Fischer Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943January 17, 2008) was an American Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Championship, World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he won his first of a record eight US Chess Champi ...

. In 2005 Balashov was awarded the title of

Senior Trainer.

Awards

Order of Friendship of Peoples The Order of Friendship of Peoples () was an order of the Soviet Union, and was awarded to persons (including non-citizens), organizations, enterprises, military units, as well as administrative subdivisions of the USSR for accomplishments in s ...

(1981)

Notable games

Yuri Balashov vs David Bronstein, Yerevan URS ch 1975, Spanish Game: Breyer Defense (C95), 1-0Evgeni Ellinovich Sveshnikov vs Yuri Balashov, Moscow URS ch 1976, French Defense: Euwe Variation (C02), 0-1Yuri Balashov vs Vasily Smyslov, Tilburg 1977, Spanish Game: Open Variations, Howell Attack (C81), 1-0Oleg Romanishin vs Yuri Balashov, Minsk URS ch 1979, Sicilian Defense: Paulsen Variation (B48), 0-1Khosro Sheik Harandi vs Yuri Balashov, Rio de Janeiro izt 1979, Sicilian Defense: Richter-Rauzer (B64), 0-1Anatoli Karpov vs Yuri Balashov, USSR 1980, Queen's Indian Defense: Kasparov Variation (E12), 0-1

Bibliography

References

External links

* * * *
Yury Balashov
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balashov, Yuri 1949 births Living people Chess Grandmasters Russian chess players Soviet chess players Russian chess writers Chess Olympiad competitors Chess coaches Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples People from Shadrinsk Russian State University of Physical Education, Sport, Youth and Tourism, Department of Chess alumni