Leonid Filatov, U.S. master and FIDE master, died July 25, 2002. He loved chess very much and participated in many tournaments such as the National Opens in Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and New York.

Less than one month before Leonid died of cancer, he had just come home from the hospital and was very weak — he went to play in a chess tournament in North Carolina, and he won. He was devoted to chess until the end of his life. Leonid was from St. Petersburg, Russia and came to the U.S. in 1992. He was a cytogeneticist and held a Ph.D.

He played chess a lot at home. We have a 7-year-old daughter, Anna, who was born in Memphis and misses her father a lot. — Vita Golubovskaya