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| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Native name | לב פסחיס |
| Born | Lev Borisovich Psakhis (1958-11-29)29 November 1958 (age 66) Kalinin,Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Chess career | |
| Country | Israel |
| Title | Grandmaster (1982) |
| FIDE rating | 2438 (November 2025) |
| Peak rating | 2625 (January 1995) |
| Peak ranking | No. 7 (July 1982) |
Lev Borisovich Psakhis (Hebrew:לב בוריסוביץ' פסחיס;Russian:Лев Борисович Псахис; born 29 November 1958) is an Israelichessgrandmaster, trainer and author. He is also a two-time former champion of the Soviet Union.
He gained theInternational Master andInternational Grandmaster titles in 1980 and 1982 respectively, either side of two momentous Soviet Championship victories in 1980 (Vilnius—shared withAlexander Beliavsky) and 1981 (Frunze—shared withGarry Kasparov, whom he defeated in round 2).
In international tournaments, he has had many fine results, including outright or shared first place atNałęczów 1980,[1]Sarajevo 1981,[2]Cienfuegos 1983,[3]Troon 1984,[4]Sverdlovsk 1984,[5] Szirak 1986,Sarajevo 1986,[6]Sevastopol 1986,Lugano Open 1988,Tel Aviv 1990 (and again in 1999), London MSO 1999, andAndorra 2002. There were creditable second-place finishes atTallinn 1983,[7]Sochi 1985,Trnava 1988,[8]Calcutta 1988,[9]Erevan 1988,[10] andHerzliya 1998.
In theWorld Championship cycle, he was a runner-up at the Erevan Zonal of 1982 and qualified for theInterzonal atLas Palmas later the same year. Posting only a modest score however, he failed to progress to theCandidates stage of the competition.
He waschampion of Israel in 1997 and shared the title in 1999. He has also represented his adopted country at theChess Olympiad seven times between 1990 and 2002. At theEuropean Team Chess Championship, he was first a member of the Soviet team atPlovdiv in 1983, when he won individual and team gold medals. Representing Israel thereafter, he took the board 4 individual gold medal atBatumi in 1999.
Over the years, he has assisted in many training programs, dating back to the late 1980s when he worked with Kasparov andArtur Yusupov. He played a training match with Kasparov in 1990 and lost 1–5. Other students and famous chess players whom he has seconded includeSusan Polgar,Judit Polgár,[11]Daniel Naroditsky,[12] andEmil Sutovsky.In 2011, Psakhis underwent liver transplant. He managed to recover successfully and return to the chess scene.[13]
He was in his youth a player of sharp and vivid, complex positions, but nowadays prefers to play in a positional sense. Consequently, he has developed an affinity with theFrench Defence and is a noted expert on it, beginning with writingThe Complete French (andThe Complete Benoni) for B.T. Batsford in the early nineties. His latest Batsford effort is a four-volume treatise on the French in 2003/4, titledVol.1French Defence: 3. Nd2 (Tarrasch),Vol.2French Defence: Advance and Anti-French Variations,Vol.3French Defence: 3. Nc3 Bb4 (Winawer) andVol.4French Defence: Steinitz, Classical and Other Variations.
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