The following year, he had a terrific result at the USSR Championship, sharing second place with Boris Gulko, Mikhail Tal and Rafael Vaganian, after Tigran Petrosian.

Nowadays less active as a tournament player, Romanishin has nevertheless won smaller events on the grandmaster circuit, such as Solin-Split 2004 and Hotel Petra (Rome) 2005.

At the Olympiads he represented the Soviet Union in 1978 and thereafter played for Ukraine through the 1990s, winning a total of 2 silver medals and 2 bronze.

Only by means of deep research and accurate preparation has he been able to employ these openings as weapons to sidestep known theory and fight for the full point.

The newly popular variations arising from an early Be7 in the French Defence, were also pioneered by him (and Australian postal IM John Kellner) in the 1970s and have been further refined by the likes of Morozevich and Short in more recent practice.