Smirin

[bushinsky shay]

>Anibody has info about Smirin ? Is he young/old, can we expect better
>from him in the future. So far he has been doing quite well for someone who
>was not even seeded before the tournament.

>GF

Smirin's profile:

Ilya Smirin emigrated to Israel about two years ago.
He was born on January 12th, 1968.
Smirin learned his professional chess from the famous school
of IGM Kapengut located in Minsk Beylowrus. Their he paired with
well known Boris Gelfand, both trained together under Kapengut.
Gelfand, was described as a more serious student, perhaps the
key for his prevailing success until now.
Smirin, though ranked just under Boris Spasky in offical FIDE
rating, is a great talent. He plays a very strong offensive game
likes to complicate positions and often to sacrifice material.
Since he arrived in Israel, he played in a couple of local tournaments,
among them:

Smirin took part in the Israeli team for the Manila olympics,
(IGM's Psakhis, Smirin, Alterman, Gofstein, Zilberman, Grunfeld)
that missed the second place on the last round,
though he himself performed not so well.

ASA International, April 13-25, 1992, shared 1-2 with IGM Henkin, Category 11.
Israel 1992 national championship,
shared 1-3 with IGM Alon Greenfeld and IM Ronen Lev.

Currently he lives in Tel-Aviv as a professional player. He also
is the trainer of Ronen Har-Zvi (2580) who is the Cadet World Champion.

I myself had a chance to confront him with Gideon the Chess Machine
in an active chess tournament held here. Gideon BTW scored its biggest
win so far against a professional.

Enclosed is a miniature from the latest national championship
that ended a month ago:

Israel Championship, 1992
White Black
I. Smirin (2555) Y.afek (2508)
1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5 Nd4
4. Nc3 Qb6
5. Nxd4 cxd4
6. Nd5 Qd8
7. Qh5! a6?? (7...Nf6 is the only move)
8. Qe5 f6
9. Nc7+ Kf7
10.Qd5
1:0

(10...e6 11. Nxe6 +-)