A second emergency surgery was performed five days after the initial operation, for sternal wound infection and respiratory failure. Compounding his problems, sternal fractures were found during the second surgery. Yermo is being crushed by medical bills which his Medicare is not covering as there is no reciprocal agreement with Turkey.
His doctors have told him that it will be at least six-months before he can safely return to the United States. Yermo will require a prolonged hospital stay with antibiotic therapy, but that his long-term prognosis following the bypass surgery is excellent.
You can contribute to Yermo's medical fund at this GoFundMe site.
Alex Shabalov and Yermolinsky during the 2019 World Senior Team Championship in Rhodes. Shabalov and GM Gregory Kaidanov are co-organizers of the GoFundMe action.
Yermo has written a large number of reports for our news page. You can get a full index of his articles by clicking the image on the right.
Beyond competitive play, Yermolinsky is known for his chess commentary, and for his instructional work, including the acclaimed book "The Road to Chess Improvement".
ChessBase author Albert Silver, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is an old friend of Alexander and in constant touch with him on Whatsapp. Both are avid fans of Snooker, and during the 2025 World Snooker Championship Albert kept recording the sessions for Yermo so that he didn't miss out. The coverage in Turkey was sporadic, and Albert promised him he wouldn't miss the great action of this historic event.
Biographical notes on Alexander Yermolinsky
The Russian-born American grandmaster, author, and commentator was born on April 11, 1958, in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He learned chess at age eight and rose through the Soviet chess school, becoming one of the top ten youth players in the USSR. After emigrating from the Soviet Union in 1989, he moved to the United States in 1990 and soon became a U.S. citizen.
Yermolinsky achieved the IM title in 1990 and became a grandmaster in 1992. He is a two-time U.S. Chess Champion (1993 and 1996) and has won several major tournaments, including the World Open in Philadelphia (1993, 1995, 1996) and the American Continental Championship in 2001. He represented the U.S. at multiple Chess Olympiads and was inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2012.
GM Yasser Seirawan, who drew my attention to the plight of Alexander Yermolinsk and the GoFundMe action, reminded me that it was a great honour for him "to play behind Yermo at a number of Olympiads."
| Advertising |
.jpeg)
.jpeg)