Mikhail Gurevich

Who is Mikhail Gurevich?

Mikhail Naumovich Gurevich is a Soviet chess player. He lived in Belgium from 1991 to 2005 and since then resides in Turkey.

Gurevich won the Ukrainian Chess Championship in 1984 and became USSR Champion in 1985, controversially taking the title on tiebreak points from co-winners Alexander Chernin and Viktor Gavrikov, after a three-way playoff was organized and all the games were drawn. However, he was not allowed to leave the country to participate in the Interzonal, and Gavrikov and Chernin went in his place.

Gurevich was awarded the International Master title in 1985, and became an International Grandmaster in 1986. In 1987 he was first at Moscow ahead of Oleg Romanishin and Sergey Dolmatov. He finished second at Leningrad after Rafael Vaganian, but ahead of Andrei Sokolov and Artur Yusupov.

At his peak, between 1989 and 1991, Gurevich was consistently ranked in the top ten players in the world. He took first at Reggio Emilia 1989, ahead of Vassily Ivanchuk, Jaan Ehlvest and Viswanathan Anand and tied for first at Moscow 1990 with Alexander Khalifman and Evgeny Bareev. His highest world rank ever was a tie for fifth place on the January 1990 and January 1991 FIDE rating lists, with ratings of 2645 and 2650 respectively.