Leonid Stein
| Leonid Stein | |
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Leonid Stein in 1969
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| Full name | Leonid Zakharovich Stein |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Born |
November 12, 1934 Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Died | July 4, 1973 (aged 38) Moscow. SFSR. Soviet Union |
| Title | Grandmaster |
| Peak rating | 2620 (July 1972) |
Leonid Zakharovich Stein (Леонид Захарович Штейн; November 12, 1934 – July 4, 1973) was a Soviet chess Grandmaster from Ukraine. He won three USSR Chess Championships in the 1960s (1963, 1965, and 1966), and was among the world's top ten players during that era.
Leonid Stein was born in Kamenets-Podolsky. He was a Jewish Ukrainian who served in the Soviet Army.
In both 1955 and 1956, he tied for first place in the individual Army Championship. He achieved the national Master title for chess at the relatively late age of 24, but, as his Army titles against strong competition attest, he was likely at that strength somewhat earlier. At 24, he competed for the first time in the USSR Chess Championship at Tbilisi, 1959. In the following year he won the Ukrainian Championship at Kiev, winning it again in 1962. He played board one for the Soviet team at the Helsinki 1961 Student Olympiad, scoring a strong +8, =3, −1, and helping his team to the overall gold medals.
Stein tied for third place in the 1961 Soviet Championship, at Moscow, defeating Tigran Petrosian on the way. He won his first Soviet title at Leningrad 1963; he tied with Boris Spassky and Ratmir Kholmov in the tournament itself, then won the playoff. He won again at Tallinn, 1965, and repeated the next year, 1966, at Tbilisi. Two outstanding international tournament victories were attained at Moscow 1967 (commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution), and Moscow 1971 (Alekhine Memorial, equal with Anatoly Karpov). Further international tournament victories were scored at East Berlin 1962, Sarajevo 1967, Hastings 1967–68, Kecskemét 1968, Tallinn 1969, Pärnu 1971, and Las Palmas 1973. From 1962–1973, Stein was in the top ten players in the world, or just outside that range.
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