Alexander Shabalov

Alexander Shabalov ( Latvian Aleksandrs Šabalovs; Russian Александр Анатольевич Шабалов; born September 12, 1967 in Riga) is an American Grandmaster and multiple U.S. champion in chess.

Career

Shabalov earned his first chess successes in the Soviet homeland, grew up in Latvia, he won the 1982 USSR Championships under 16 years of age. His coaches at that time included, among others, Vladimir Bagirov and his compatriot, the world chess champion from 1960, Mikhail Tal. Shabalov opted in 1988 for a career as a professional chess player and won three years later the Grand Master title. 1992 in Manila, he took part for the first time at a Chess Olympiad, on the third board, he was playing with the Latvian national team fifth. In the same year due to political unrest Shablov left his homeland and moved to the United States, where he lives in Pittsburgh ever since.

Between 1994 and 2004, played Shabalov in another four Chess Olympiads for the U.S. team with which he won in 1998 in Elista, Russia behind the silver medal. His greatest achievements in individual tournaments including his victory in the highly doped U.S. Open in 1993 and the Chicago Open 2003 He was three times to win the U.S. Championships. 1993 he shared with Alex Yermolinsky the title, he is the sole winner of the year 2003 and last won in 2007 in Stillwater with 7 points from 9 games, half a point ahead of the defending champion Alexander Onischuk ( 6, = 2, -1). In 2000 he shared points with Joel Benjamin and Yasser Seirawan the first place, but the title went to tie-break to Benjamin.

His current Elo rating is 2633, so he is fourth in the U.S. Elo ranking (as of April 2008). He had his highest ever Elo rating of 2645 in July 1998.

Game example

At the U.S. Championships in 2003 in Seattle Shabalov was before the final round along with seven other players, each with 5.5 points from 8 games tied at the top. While his rivals shied away from the risk of falling by a defeat from the price ranks and agreed among themselves in their encounters already in 8, 9 and 13 trains for a draw, Shabalov played out his game against the then 18 -year-old Varuzhan Akobian. After changeable gameplay, in which " Shabba " from time to time, two farmers had less, it came to this position in the diagram, in the Shabalov used an elegant win. The hopes of the black resting on the construction of a fortress, but after the queen sacrifice 56 Dh4 - f6 breaks the black position together quickly, since the remaining runners can not cope with the resulting white pawns. This was followed by:

Shabalov secured by this win the league title and the first prize of U.S. $ 25,000.