Alexander Shabalov

Alexander Shabalov

Alexander Shabalov at the 2002 U.S. Chess Championships
Full name Alexander Shabalov
Country  United States
Born September 12, 1967 (1967-09-12) (age 44)
Riga, Latvia
Title Grandmaster
FIDE rating 2590
(No. 249 on the March 2010 FIDE ratings list)

Alexander Shabalov (born September 12, 1967) is an American chess grandmaster, the multiple winner of the U.S. Chess Championships; he was the 2007 US Champion. He was born in Latvia, and like his fellow Latvians Alexei Shirov and Mikhail Tal he is known for courting complications even at the cost of objective soundness. As of the June 2007 rating supplement Shabalov had a United States Chess Federation rating of 2671, ranking him seventh best among American chess players and 81st in the world.

Until recently, Alexander Shabalov regularly lectured chess players of all ages at the House of Chess, a store that he ran at the Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, until it closed in mid-2007. He has been known to play against anyone who shows up, and to be similarly obliging to autograph-seekers. Shabalov is a four-time United States champion.

Notable games

External links

Achievements
Preceded by
Patrick Wolff
United States Chess Champion
1993 (with Alex Yermolinsky)
Succeeded by
Boris Gulko
Preceded by
Boris Gulko
United States Chess Champion
2000-2001 (with Joel Benjamin and Yasser Seirawan)
Succeeded by
Larry Christiansen
Preceded by
Larry Christiansen
United States Chess Champion
2003–2004
Succeeded by
Hikaru Nakamura
Preceded by
Alexander Onischuk
United States Chess Champion
2007
Succeeded by
Yuri Shulman