After the war, he took second, behind Alekhine, at Moscow 1920 (the first USSR Chess Championship). He was the Soviet Champion in 1923 (second USSR-ch in Petrograd) and 1927 (with Fedor Bogatyrchuk, fifth USSR Chess Championship, in Moscow). He tied for first with Grigory Levenfish, Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky and Ilya Rabinovich in the 1925 Leningrad City Chess Championship. In December 1925, he tied for seventh/eighth in the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. In 1927, he won in Leningrad. His best international result was in Leningrad 1934, finishing tied for second place with Nikolai Riumin, behind Mikhail Botvinnik.