Nineteen-year-old grandmaster Yahli Sokolovsky claimed his first Israeli national chess title by winning the 2026 championship outright with a score of 7.5 out of 9. The event, held in Acre from January 19 to 27, featured 103 players in a nine-round Swiss tournament. Sokolovsky's victory boosted his FIDE rating and elevated his standing in the national rankings.
The 2026 Israeli Chess Championship took place from January 19 to 27 in Acre's Culture Hall, drawing 103 participants from across Israel, spanning from Ma'alot in the north to Be'er Sheva in the south. This nine-round Swiss-system event included 11 grandmasters (GMs), 10 international masters (IMs), and 12 FIDE masters (FMs). Of the 15 Israeli players rated above 2500 on the January FIDE list, nine competed, with notable absentee Boris Gelfand. The total prize fund was NIS 90,000, equivalent to just under USD 30,000.
Top seeds included GMs Ilia Smirin, Ido Gorshtein, Evgeny Postny, Yahli Sokolovsky, and Victor Mikhalevski. Sokolovsky, a 19-year-old from Kiryat Ono, dominated the tournament by securing four straight wins at the start and maintaining a share of the lead through the middle rounds. A pivotal moment occurred in round eight, where he defeated second-seeded Gorshtein with the white pieces, taking sole possession of first place. In the final round, Sokolovsky drew with black, clinching the title with 7.5/9 and a performance rating of 2694. This triumph earned him 19.2 rating points, propelling him from tenth to fourth in the Israeli rankings.
Sokolovsky's previous achievements include shared second places at the 2024 Rilton Cup and the 2024 Dortmund Festival A-Open. Three players trailed him by half a point with 7/9: IM Yeshaayahu Tzidkiya secured second on tiebreaks, followed by GM Evgeny Alekseev in third and FM Ezra Paul Chambers from Burundi in fourth.
Acre, known as Akko in Hebrew and Akka in Arabic, is a historic coastal city in Israel's Northern District, strategically located on Haifa Bay.