Leonid Yudasin

Full name	Leonid Grigoryevich Yudasin
Country	Soviet Union Israel
Born	August 8, 1959 Leningrad, USSR
Title	Grandmaster
Peak rating	2645 (January 1991)

Leonid Grigoryevich Yudasin (Hebrew: ליאוניד גריגורייביץ' יודסין‎; Russian: Леонид Григорьевич Юдасин; born in Leningrad, August 8, 1959) is a prominent chess grandmaster and trainer, now living in New York City.

Awarded the International Master title in 1982, he secured the grandmaster title in 1984, the year he became Leningrad Champion. Demonstrating that his skills were not just restricted to classical chess, he went on to gain the USSR Cup for rapid chess in 1988.

Yudasin surpassed these early achievements when he became joint winner of the 1990 USSR Championship (with Beliavsky, Bareev and Vyzmanavin, the title going to Beliavsky on tie-break). He added individual bronze and team gold medals the same year, at the Novi Sad Olympiad, when he represented the USSR and registered the best performance of any of his team-mates. In 1994 and again in 1996, he played under the Israeli flag at the Moscow and Yerevan Olympiads, respectively.

A world championship Candidate in 1991, he qualified again in 1994 and this time progressed to the latter stages, losing out to Vladimir Kramnik in the quarter finals by a score of 2.5-4.5.

Arguably his most impressive international tournament success occurred at León in 1993, where he won ahead of Vyzmanavin, Topalov, Karpov and a young Peter Leko.

His prolific tournament record features many more victories, including Leningrad 1989, Calcutta 1990 Pamplona 1990/91 (also 1991/92, jointly with Illescas), Dos Hermanas 1992, Botvinnik Memorial 1995, Haifa Super Tournament 1996 and St. Petersburg White Knights 1998. At Reggio Emilia, he was joint winner with Dimitri Komarov in 1997/1998 (conceding the title on tie-break) and was outright winner in 1999/2000.

Yudasin lived in Israel for many years and was twice the Israeli champion, in Tel-Aviv 1994 and Jerusalem 1996. He has won tournaments all over the USA, and took second place at the US Open 1990 and Pennsylvania World Open 2001. Since 2002, he has spent most of his time in New York, dominating the weekly Masters tournament (top money winner), along with the likes of Hikaru Nakamura, Jaan Ehlvest, and the late Aleksander Wojtkiewicz. In 2004, he topped a strong tournament in Montreal, Canada.

His Elo rating was 2550 as of April 2007, but has been 2645. He is also a respected coach and Director of the Brooklyn Chess Academy. His many former students include Varuzhan Akobian, Irina Krush, Jennifer Shahade and the late Lembit Oll.

Leonid Yudasin is a practicing Jew, living in Brooklyn NY.