Remembering Vladimir Malaniuk

Vladimir Pavlovich Malaniuk (July 21, 1957 – July 2, 2017) was a Ukrainian chess grandmaster and three-time Ukrainian champion. He competed in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1998. In team events, Malaniuk played for Ukraine in three Chess Olympiads (1994, 1996, 1998), two World Team Chess Championships (1993, 1997) and the 1997 European Team Chess Championship. He won team silver and bronze medals in 1996 and 1998 Chess Olympiads respectively, team silver and an individual gold medals in the 1993 World Team Championship.

Malaniuk has been credited with an important contribution to chess opening theory. Along with Sergey Dolmatov, Mikhail Gurevich and Evgeny Bareev, his faithful adherence to the Leningrad Dutch Defence (described as a hybrid of the Dutch and the King's Indian) helped shape a dynamic new approach to the system in the 1980s and this led to a dramatic resurgence of interest. That it affords black the opportunity to unbalance the position and fight for the full point is probably its main attraction. The system has since become a popular choice for players at all levels, following the publication of a number of books and theoretical guides. His own book on the opening (co-authored with Petr Marusenko) was published by Chess Stars in 2014.