Ilya Smirin
Ilya (or Ilia) Smirin (Hebrew: איליה יוליביץ' סמירין; Belarusian: Ілля Юльевіч Смірын, romanized: Illa Juljevič Smiryn; Russian: Илья Юльевич Смирин, romanized: Ilya Yulievich Smirin; born January 21, 1968) is a Belarusian-Israeli chess player.He was certified as a chess teacher by the Belorussian State Institute of Physical Culture in Minsk.Smirin's tournament successes include equal first places at Sverdlovsk 1987, New York 1994, and the 2002 Israeli Championship.[2] Smirin won the traditional Grandmaster Tournament of the Biel Chess Festival in 2002 as clear first.Here Smirin, as Black, outplays the World Champion at the time: On 27 September 2022, Smirin, while broadcasting live during the ninth round of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix 2022–23, admitted that he had privately asserted that chess was "maybe not for women", and also praised Grandmaster Aleksandra Goryachkina for playing like a man.