Miron Naumovich Sher (Russian: Мирон Наумович Шер; June 29, 1952 – August 20, 2020) was a Soviet-born American chess player, who was awarded the title of Grandmaster (GM) by FIDE in 1992.
In 1997, Sher, his wife, Woman Grandmaster (WGM) Alla Grinfeld (ru), and their son, Mikhail, who then was 14, emigrated to America and settled in Brooklyn.
[2] Sher went on to become a distinguished scholastic chess coach and clinician in New York and was instrumental in developing several internationally strong players, notably Fabiano Caruana, many times number two in the world,[3][4] and Robert Hess, who at age 15, while attending Stuyvesant High School, became an international master and at 16, a grandmaster.
He went on to grad school at the State Central Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Education in Moscow;[5] and, in 1975, in addition to his academics, Sher met the norms and was awarded the national title and rank Master of Sports of the USSR in Chess (ru) – one of twenty-five nationwide to earn the distinction that year (not to be confused with an academic master's degree in sports).
[a][6][7] Sher's wife, WGM Alla Grinfeld (see Family section below) won the title, Master of Sports of the USSR in Chess, a year earlier.
In that tournament, Arkady Novopashin (1932–2014) (ru) was 2nd and WGM Maia Chiburdanidze, age 20 at the time, tied GM Vladimir Tukmakov for 1st.
In December 1994, as the winner of the 1993–1994 Hastings Challengers, he qualified for the 1994–1995 Premier tournament, where he tied 3rd with Colin McNab, behind John Nunn (2nd), and Thomas Luther (1st).
[12] Beginning 1990, after several visits to Scandinavia, Sher began coaching Peter Heine Nielsen in Copenhagen, which was 45 minutes by plane from Kaliningrad.
In 2013, Nielsen joined the team of assistants who helped Magnus Carlsen prepare for the 2013 Candidates Tournament World Championship.
Zlotnik had worked 16 years in the Chess Department of Sher's alma mater, the State Central Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Education.
Chess, if ever, in which four Americans, Kiewra included, earned qualifying titles: Sam Shankland, 19, grandmaster; Daniel Naroditsky, 15, and Conrad Holt, 17, international masters.
[15] Sher also coached Darrian Robinson (born 1994),[16] who, when the Chicago Tribune published an article about her in 2014, was the highest rated African American female chess player in the U.S.
Yet, Sher submitted an application because GM Yuri Razuvaev, a fellow Russian who was chairman of the commission, asked him to do so.
Sher had stated that the impetus for emigrating from Russia in 1997 was out of concern that his son, Mikhail, would be drafted in the Russian military.