Mikhail Golubev
Mikhail Golubev (born 30 May 1970, Odessa) is a Ukrainian chess Grandmaster (1996), journalist and author. Chess career. Golubev began playing chess at the age of six and played his first tournament a year later in 1977. He played several times in Ukrainian Chess Championship, and shared first place (with Valery Neverov) at Yalta 1996 (declared winner on better tie-breaks). In 2008, he won the Odessa Region Open Championship. Other successful performances include first place at Karviná 1992-93, first at Bucharest 2002, and first at Béthune 2002. Chess strength. According to the website Chessmetrics, at his  peak in January 1995 Golubev's play was equivalent to a rating of 2598, and he was ranked number 151 in the world. His best single performance was at Biel open, 1995, where he scored 4 of 6 possible points (67%) against 2605-rated opposition, for a performance rating of 2643. According to the database Mega Database 2009, his best performances were Bethune 2002 (6,5 points on 7 possible and a 2768 performance), Karvina 1992–93 (8 points on 9 possible and a 2691 performance), Yalta 1996 (8,5 points on 11 possible and a 2663 performance) and Berlin 1993 (7 points  on 9 possible and a 2662 performance). In the November 2009 FIDE list, he has an Elo rating of 2492, making him Ukraine's number 71. Journalism. Golubev is as much a chess journalist as an author. In addition to being chess observer for the Ukrainian newspaper Komanda and making contributions to ChessBase.com, Chesspro and Chess-News.ru, he has contributed to over a 1000 editions of the online daily chess newspaper Chess Today.