At the beginning of his career in Saint Petersburg, he shared fourth place in 1908 (Sergey von Freymann and Karl Wilhelm Rosenkrantz won), tied for 10–11th in 1909 (Alexander Alekhine won), took second place behind Smorodsky in 1913, and shared first with von Freymann in 1914 (Hexagonal).

[1] Romanovsky participated in the Mannheim 1914 chess tournament (the 19th DSB Congress), begun on 20 July and stopped on 1 August, when World War I broke out.

[4] After being released from internment by the Red Cross in spring 1915, due to his poor health (heart illness), he returned to Petrograd.

When Romanovsky returned to Russia, he immediately helped raise money to aid the Russian chess players who were still interned in Germany by giving a simultaneous exhibition at the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical Institute.

He tied for first with Grigory Levenfish, Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky and Ilya Rabinovich in the 1925 Leningrad City Chess Championship.

In 1954, the Soviets withdrew their application for Romanovsky to receive the Grandmaster title, which had been based on his first place in the 1927 USSR championship.