Alex Shabalov

“Shabba” originally hailed from Riga, and quite fittingly, has the same explosive style as Latvian World Champion Mikhail Tal.  Alex even had the privilege of studying with the wizard of Riga before moving to the United States in the early 1990s.  He took the US chess scene by storm ever since, and has won nearly every major tournament we have.  A four-time US Champion, Alex took home the title in 1993, 1997, 2003, and 2007.  He’s also won the US Open Championship a whopping seven times, and in 2002 tied for first in the prestigious Aeroflot Open in Moscow.  Shabba was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame in 2015.  He currently resides in PIttsburgh, and despite doing a fair share of teaching these days, he still travels to tournaments around the world on a regular basis.  If you like games with wild complications, Alex is definitely the one to follow.  As he himself has said, “If the position after my move becomes more complicated, then the game is going in the right direction!”