It was an axiom that fashioned him into a tough and fiercely competitive player and appeared to bring him his fair share of success.

As an active tournament player in the 1960s and 1970s, he achieved many fine results, including sharing or winning outright first place at Sarajevo 1965, Copenhagen 1965, Titovo Užice 1966, Hastings 1967/68, Havana 1969, Albena 1970, Kecskemét 1972, Brno 1975 (the inaugural Czech Open Championship – the title of Champion going to Vlastimil Hort on tie-break), Lublin 1976, and Dubna 1979.

He was for many years Moscow's senior coach, overseeing the development of promising new talents, including Vassily Ivanchuk and Andrei Sokolov.

He won the Hastings Challengers event of 1990/91, but was like Efim Geller, a chain-smoker, and found it difficult to adjust to the 1990 FIDE directive that banned smoking in tournament halls.

He died aged 74 of a heart attack shortly after returning home from the Russian Senior Chess Championship.