Leonid Yudasin

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Leonid Grigoryevich Yudasin (born Leningrad, August 8, 1959) is a prominent grandmaster of chess now living in New York City.

Awarded the International Master title in 1982 and the International Grandmaster title some time later, he was Leningrad Champion in 1984 and won at Albena in 1985.

Those early achievements were however surpassed when he became joint winner of the USSR Championship in 1990 (with Belyavsky, Bareev and Vyzmanavin). 1990 was also the year that he won individual bronze and team gold medals at the Novi Sad Olympiad, representing Russia, his country of birth. In 1994 and again in 1996, he played under the Israeli flag at the Moscow and Yerevan Olympiads, respectively.

1994 was also the year that he progressed to the latter stages of the FIDE World Chess Championship, losing out to Vladimir Kramnik in the quarter finals by a score of 2.5-4.5.

His most impressive international tournament success was probably at León in 1993, where he won ahead of Vyzmanavin, Topalov, Karpov and a young Peter Leko. Since 2002, he has spent much of his time in New York, dominating the weekly Masters tournament (top money winner), along with GMs Stripunsky, Ehlvest, and Wojtkiewicz.

His Elo rating was 2578 as of October 2006, but has been over 2600.

Yudasin is a baal teshuva and a practicing Orthodox Jew.

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