Born in Zhytomyr, Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine), Perelshteyn began playing chess at around seven years old, taught by his father, Mikhail Perelshteyn, a FIDE master and professional chess coach.
[2] After taking two years off from school to play chess professionally, Perelshteyn returned to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and graduated in 2004.
[6] In March 2018, Perelshteyn tied for fourth in the Reykjavik Open, scoring 6½/9 points.
He has since converted his books into a website, ChessOpeningsExplained.com, in which he shares his knowledge of the Hyper-Accelerated Sicilian Dragon.
In August 2015, Perelshteyn also collaborated with programmer Peter Pashkov[8] to develop the Android application Chess Genie, which offers tactical exercises to its users.