 He won the Leningrad City Chess Championship in 1954 (a tournament won the following year by Viktor Korchnoi).He played correspondence chess from 1964, and played for the Soviet team in the 6th and 7th Postal Olympiads with scores of 6 out of 8 and 5.5 out of 9.He became an International Master of correspondence chess in 1969, gaining the title from the International Correspondence Chess Federation on the basis of his 5.5 out of 8 score on 3rd board in the European Team Chess Championship.