Alexander Yermolinsky is a "Grandmaster in residence" at the Mechanics' Institute in downtown San Francisco. Alex conducts lectures, organizes events, giving Bay Area chess enthusiasts open access to this outspoken Grandmaster with a sharp positional eye.

Born in the Soviet Union, Alex, also known as "Yermo" immigrated to the United States in 1990 after a brief stint in Italy. He earned his Grandmaster stripes playing second board for the American team in 1992. For a while, his main US gig was as as a chemist, a job he was trained for in the Soviet Union.

He shared first place in the 1993 U.S. Championship with his lifelong friend Alexander Shabalov, and won clear first in 1996. The chess world first got a chance to enjoy Alex's straightforward writing style in The Road to Chess Improvement (1999) a critically acclaimed book with strong opinions. For instance, Alex advised chess amateurs "to stand on the shoulders of giants", and study and play critical openings lines, especially against higher-rated opponents. Alex confessed that nothing relieved him more than when a weaker opponent shied away from the main lines.

In 2006, Alex published his second book on an opening that he's an expert on, The Classical Sicilian. In this opening, it's typical for Black to leave his king in the center and set up a phalanx of center pawns (f6,f7,e6,d6). So, if you find yourself White against Alex, don't get too excited if he's lost his right to castle and has doubled pawns. Most likely, he knows what he's doing.