Students

I am proud of all my students who improved their chess skills after our lessons. There are some who put a great deal of effort into their work in order to achieve great results.

Anna Ushenina

International Grandmaster, 14th World Women’s Chess Champion 2012, Olympic Champion 2006. Highest FIDE rating 2502

Liran Zhou​

In August 2017, at the age of 9 years, 3 months and 22 days, he became the youngest ever National Master of the U.S. In 2018 he attended the Kasparov Chess Foundation program that trains young American talents. In May 2020 his rating was 2351 and he is a FIDE Master.

Maxim Polyakov​

Best FIDE rating 2455. International Master. He qualified from Ukraine for the 2007 World Junior Championship.

Alexey Averjanov​

Best FIDE rating 2420, International Master

Andrey Ermolaev​

Best FIDE rating 2372, Candidate Master, awaiting his FM title.

Olena Dvoretska​

Best FIDE rating 2212, Women International Master.

Mariya Oreshko​

Highest USCF rating 2162, winner of a 2007 New Jersey youth championship among girls. Qualified for the Pan American Youth Festival 2009 and a World Youth Championship in 2010.

CM Nathan Smith​

Bahamas Scholastic Individual Champion 2017.

Adithya Rajesh Elara​

Won silver in rapid and bronze in classical at the 2018 Singapore U10 Nationals.

Cristina Fidaire​

Won bronze in the Women’s Texas Championship 2019.

Vijay and Vishwaa Kannan​

Both placed first at a grade level state championship in Kentucky in February 2020.

Ahluwalia Amardip​

After having been stuck around Elo 2000 FIDE for some time, has now increased his Elo rating to his highest level so far at 2250, and continues to improve.

Besides the students mentioned above, I have twelve students who are Candidate Masters in my native Kharkiv and about the same number of students online from other countries who have crossed the 2000-barrier either with their online or over the board chess.
Having said all this about my students, let me mention my coach who believed in my talent and helped to develop my chess skills. He is a National Master of the former USSR. When he moved to Germany and became an International Master, he was 70 years old! Live and learn.

Boris Khanukov

Best FIDE rating 2424. International Master. National Master of former USSR, tied 2-4 places at European Senior Chess Championship Davos, Switzerland 2006 and got 4th place at the XVIII Senior World Championship in Bad Zwischenahn 2008

Below you can review some selected games with my comments. One was a game WGM Alexandrova won with the Bishop Pair, a subject we worked on before the Ukrainian Women Championship 2004, which she won. Alexandrova’s game was one of the few Bishop Pair wins in that championship. Also, there are some games of my students and two of 20 or more games that were annotated by me and published in a book about Leko’s Top-100 wins (use the drop-down menu above the chess board to select a game; on your mobile or tablet, swipe down or up to make the next or previous game appear).