MIKHAIL GOLUBEV'S CHESS PAGE
gmi@europe.com

last edited: Wednesday 1 April, 2009

A B O U T   M E

Born on 30 May 1970 in Odessa.
A silver medalist of the Ukrainian U-17 Championship in 1984.
Shared 7th-10th places in the USSR U-18 Championship in 1985.
Played on the Ukrainian U-18 team in 1988.
International Chess Grandmaster since 1996.
Champion of Ukraine in 1996.
Highest ELO rating achieved: 2570 in January 1995.
Highest position in the world rankings: 109th-119th in January 1994.
Highest position among Ukrainians: 8th in January 1994.
Clear or shared first in 16 international tournaments with a long time control (1992-2006).
Active as chess journalist since 1998.
In 1998-2003 editor of the website Ukrainian Chess Online.
In October 2006 - February 2007 member of the Board of the Association of Chess Professionals.
Author of chess books: Easy Guide to the Dragon (1999), The Sicilian Sozin (2001), Understanding the King's Indian (2006).

N E W S :
 

 
Interview for Latestchess.com
In March 2009 I gave an interview for the website Latestchess.com. Cool stuff, as usual. :-)
 

 
ChessPublishing.com
On 18 February 2009 my second monthly update of the KID section was posted at www.ChessPublishing.com. In the near future, besides the usual journalistic work, I will be involved in covering the King's Indian Defence at this unique, in its own way, chess openings site. It would be illogical to concentrate on two specific King's Indian projects simultaneously. So, starting from now I will stop updating mikhail-golubev.livejournal.com, a small blog, devoted to my book UNDERSTANDING THE KING'S INDIAN, published by Gambit Publications in the beginning of 2006. Note that my main homepage remains www.geocities.com/mikhail_golubev
More...
 

 
Arcapita Open, Bahrain
On 24 January - 2 February 2009 I played in the Arcapita International Chess Championship in Manama, Bahrain and also reported from the event.
More...
 

 
4th Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup
The 4th Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup took place in Odessa 30th May - 2nd June 2008. It is not usual for me (especially lately) to play against such opposition. Hence, the result. Final standings: 1-4. Tregubov, Drozdovskij, Gelfand and Ponomariov - 9. 5.Karpov - 8,5, 6-7.Korchnoi and Beim - 4, 8.Golubev - 3,5. Shortly after the Odessa tournament I left for Foros to work as a commentator.
Games from Odessa at Chessgames.com
My games versus Viktor Korchnoi, annotated (CT-2766, pdf file)
Photo report at ChessPro.ru (the text is in Russian)
Day 1 report by Novaya Odessa (RUS-language Odessa TV channel)
 

 
Odessa Championship
(25 April 2008). Yesterday I filled a certain gap in my career. Once, in 1996, I won the Ukrainian championship, but I never was a champion of my hometown. On 16-24 April 2008 I played in the Odessa City & Region open championship, and somehow managed to take first place.
Final standings:
1. GM Golubev (2474) - 8 out of 9, 2. IM Fingerov (2347) - 7.5, 3. Reshetkov (2124) - 7, 4-6. Bogdanovich (2327), Funtikov and Fiodorov (2223) - 6.5, etc. (67 players).
My previous participation in the regional championship was in 1987/1988, which was quite a strong round robin with six further GMs and three further IMs playing. The oldest participant, USSR master Tokarev, has passed away since then. Others are living in USA, Germany, Austria, Spain, Israel, and even in Ukraine.
 

 
30 Years of Tournament Chess
(11 January 2008). In September 1977 I entered the Odessa chess club for the first time. My first chess tournament was very soon afterwards. As I had already played for a year with members of my family, I made the third category quickly. My latest tournament was the Odessa Geller Memorial Open in September 2007. Thus, 30 years of tournament chess for me! Below is a file with all my preserved games (from all kind of chess competitions, with the exception of blitz). Many things are not preserved, including almost all my early games, played until 1983. If my former opponents would send me any absent games by email, I would be very grateful.
ALL my preserved games (zipped CBV format)
 

 
Two Issues of Chess Today
Please look at two sample issues of Chess Today (pdf files only): CT-2500 (September 12, 2007) and CT-2506 (September 18, 2007). The latter has my report from the Odessa Geller Memorial Open (the only classical tournament where I planned to play this year). Former is our anniversary issue, which has, in particular, predictions of CT journalists for the Mexico 2007 World Championship. Our editor-in-chief and our team were congratulated by many colleagues. Many thanks! Grandmaster Lubomir Kavalek wrote the following in the Washington Post on September 17, 2007:
- Alexander Baburin's excellent electronic daily Chess Today published its 2,500th issue last week. Congratulations! This remarkable product, indispensable for tournament players, provides well-commented games and timely news. More information and free samples are at http://www.chesstoday.net.
 

 
The Chess Mind
In July 2007 I answered 20 questions for the blog The Chess Mind by Dennis Monokroussos. My game versus IM Renzo Mantovani from Biel, 1992 was published there as well.
 

 
Elista, Foros, Odessa
(18 July 2007). After assisting (alas, with unsatisfying result) to Ruslan Ponomariov at the Candidates Matches in Elista in May and working in the press centre at two Ukrainain tournaments, the Aerosvit-2007 (Foros, June) and the 3rd Pivdenny Bank Chess Cup (Odessa, July) I finally have a time for updating this website and for other, even more senseless things... In Foros I was responsible for the daily comments to the games and in Odessa (together with Misha Savinov) for news of the tournament site. I also reported from these events (in case of Elista, after the end of the match) for Chess Today, Komanda, ChessPro.ru, and The British Chess Magazine. I am grateful to Misha Savinov for the interview with me which was conducted in Odessa and published (in English) in Misha's column at ChessCafe.com on July 11. Two interviews which were made by myself, with Alexander Onischuk (in Foros) and with Vasyl Ivanchuk (in Odessa) were published in the newspaper Komanda, in Russian.
 

 
The First ACP World Cup
On 4-8 January 2007 I worked in the press centre of the 1st ACP World Cup, which was held in Hotel Londonskaya in Odessa, and also reported for both website ChessPro.ru and newspaper Komanda. In was a fantastic event. For some days Odessa became a true chess capital of the world. In the final Peter Leko defeated Vasyl Ivanchuk in the tiebreak blitz games. After the event end, I prepared several reports for Chess Today (CT-2255, CT-2258, CT-2263), and wrote an article which was published in the February 2007 issue of the British Chess Magazine. In February 2007, being overloaded with journalistic work, I quitted the Board of the Association of Chess Professionals. These four months when I worked there became an important and largely positive experience. Certainly, I would continue to support the ACP (as an ordinary member) as well as new chess tournaments in Odessa. (19 March 2007).
ACP Wcup 2007 Photos
 

 
Many events in Ukraine
(31 October 2006). My recent activities have been related with the Ukrainian chess events. In June-September 2006 I played in the Alushta Summer GM tournament, worked as a commentator at the Foros supertournament, played in the 2nd Geller Memorial Pivdenny Bank rapid, played in the Ilyichevsk Sunny Pawn GM tournament, participated in the Odessa-Istanbul-Odessa chess cruise (TWIC-617; ChessBase.com; ChessBase.de), and played in the 2nd Geller Memorial Open. In October 2006 I was elected by the ACP (Association of Chess Professionals) Board members and became a new member of the ACP Board. The First ACP World Rapid Cup will be organised in Odessa by the ACP and Pivdenny Bank, it will take place in January 2007. Chess journalism remains to be my primary occupation.
 

 
Mtel Masters 2006
I reported from the 2nd edition of the Mtel Masters tournament, which took place in Sofia on 11-21 May, for Chess Today (Issues 2012-2016 and 2018-2022; 28 annotated games) and for the Russian website ChessPro. There also was one photo report for the ACP site. More, but very small, photos can be found at this site (page-1; page-2). Tournament's final standings: Topalov 6.5 Kamsky 6.0 Anand 5.5 Svidler 5.0 Bacrot and Ponomariov 3.5.
 

 
Chess Today: the 2000th issue is out!
From Chess Today - 2000 (30th April 2006):
Whose Games did we Annotate? It is true to say that the CT team have annotated quite a lot of games in these two thousand issues. It was curious to check whose games were annotated the most in CT. On the whole, our preferences were on the side of such players who, in this period, were active at the top level (had enough invitations!?), strong, creative, cool and charismatic. Number of games (fragments), annotated in CT 1-2000: 1. Anand (175) 2. Kramnik (151) 3. Shirov (144) 4. Topalov (137) 5. Morozevich (125) 6. Kasparov (119) 7. Leko (112) 8. Svidler (92) 9. Van Wely (89) 10. Adams (86) 11. Grischuk (82) 12. Ivanchuk (80) 13. Ponomariov (76) 14-15. Bareev (74) 14-15. Kasimdzhanov (74)
CT-2000 pdf file
 

 
Rector Cup 2006
The 8th Rector Cup took place 27th March - 7th April in Kharkov, in the National Law Academy of Ukraine (www.uracad.kharkiv.edu/maineng.html). Final standings: 1.GM Zubarev - 7.5/11; 2. GM Golubev - 7; 3. FM Lushenkov - 6.5; etc. (12 players, 3 GMs, 6 IMs, average rating 2423). The full results of the men's and women's tournaments are available at: www.ukrchess.org.ua/turnir/t085u.html (in Ukrainian) or www.chesscenter.com/twic/twic596.html#15.
 

 
Understanding the King's Indian is out!
My third book, Understanding the King's Indian, is published by Gambit Publications in February, 2006. I started to accumulate related links on the separate small site: mikhail_golubev.livejournal.com (or mikhail-golubev.livejournal.com). All visitors are welcome to comment.
 

 
Moscow Aeroflot 2006
Several photos from the 5th Aeroflot Open (Moscow, February 8-16 2006) can be found on a separate page here. I scored 4.5 points out of 9 in the A2 Group: rather a shameful result, I agree! But it could have been even worse. One of my reports from Moscow can be found in the Chess Today - 1927 pdf file.
 

 
Bucharest Open 2005
Chess Today - 1873 pdf file (Bucharest Memorialul Revolutii Open, 14-22 December 2005: report and games; Starting Out: The Sicilian Dragon reviewed) is added to selection of articles. Note: Chess Today is copyright by GM Alexander Baburin; any reproduction of CT files without his consent is strictly prohibited.
 

 
Svobodu Ne Spynyty!
Freedom is Unstoppable! (Ukr). I was not sure whether I should or should not celebrate the anniversary of the Orange Revolution on my personal page. After all, many of my compatriots have voted against my hope in 2004. I should respect their feelings. So, I will limit myself to a two random Ukraine-related quotes taken from the Guardian newspaper.
- The name of the country is not the Ukraine. It is Ukraine. The 'the' for Ukrainians has echoes of imperial and soviet dependence. Edgy attitudes towards Ukraine, 14 Aug 04.
- The idea that Europe, in its current xenophobic state, will embrace 48 million Ukrainians on an average salary that makes Romanians rich by comparison, is an absurd illusion. A future that isn't orange, 6 Dec 04.
 

 
Later is better than never (11 Nov 2005)
Finally, I found the time to post 90 (selected) photos from the Mtel Masters tournament (Sofia, 11-22 May 2005). Earlier, my reports from Sofia were published in Chess Today, British Chess Magazine, Komanda and 64 Chess Review.
Sofia 2005 photos (3.4 Mb)
 

 
Chess Today celebrates its 5th Birthday!
On 7th November 2005 the first daily chess newspaper on the net, Chess Today, celebrated its 5th birthday.
CT-1826 pdf file.
 

 
July 2005 BCM issue
I acted as guest editor for the special issue (July 2005) of the world's oldest chess magazine, The British Chess Magazine. Other Ukrainian contributors were: Ruslan Ponomariov, Olena Boytsun, Valeri Beim, Mikhail Podgaets, Andrei Yeremenko, Efim Lazarev and Alexander Moiseenko. Details are available at the BCM Online website.