Alexander Beliavsky

Aleksandr Genrikhovich Beliavsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ге́нрихович Беля́вский; Ukrainian: Олександр Белявський [Oleksandr Beliavski]) (Ukraine (former Ukrainian SSR), December 17, 1953) is a Ukrainian chess player.

He currently resides in Slovenia and defends the first board of that country's Olympic chess team. He is known among Chess Grandmasters as 'Satan'. He won the World Junior Championship in 1973, and has been a four-time champion of the former Soviet Union. He is possibly the top level player with the most classical opening repertoire today. He plays the queen's gambit, the Ruy Lopez opening, and the French defense, among others.

In August 2006, he participated in a tournament held in the Netherlands in which veteran Grandmasters (the team consisted of Ljubojević, Andersson, Yusupov, Nunn and Beliavski himself) faced off against representatives of the new wave of chess led by Magnus Carlsen, accompanied by Kariakin, Wang Hao, Smeets and Stellwagen; Beliavski reached 6'5 points out of 10 possible in his confrontations against the youngsters, being the GM of the veteran team that obtained the best score.

In September 2012, Beliavsky participated and won the ITT Simón Bolívar, surprising the more than 600 participants of the event. This important success was achieved at the age of 58. This event was held in the city of San Cristóbal, Venezuela, being this the most important event held in Venezuela, both for the number of players and the presence of more than 60 titled players, including 30 grandmasters. Beliavsky finished undefeated with a score of 8.5/10.