20-year-old Russian chess grandmaster Yuri Yeliseyev dies after fall from 12th storey balcony

Yura Yeliseyev was practising parkour when he slipped, his friend says

Yura Yeliseyev was ranked 212th in the world after becoming a grandmaster at the age of 17 (AFP/Getty Images)

A Russian chess grandmaster has died after falling to his death from a 12th-floor balcony in Moscow.

Yura Yeliseyev died late on Saturday after he slipped while attempting to jump from one balcony to another.

Mr Yeliseyev was reportedly a fan of parkour, an urban sport which involves climbing and jumping on roofs, fences, perches and manmade structures.

The chess star was the world under-16 chess champion in 2012 and was granted grandmaster status at just 17.

He won the Moscow Open 2016 and was currently ranked at 42nd among grandmasters. His world ranking was 212.

Writing on Facebook, his friend and fellow chess grandmaster Daniil Dubov said: "Tonight my close friend died - an outstanding chess player and analyst, one of the most talented people I know, Yura Yeliseyev.

"He was trying to climb from the window onto a balcony on the 12th floor but lost his grip."

The Russian chess coach, Sergei Yanovsky told the BBC Mr Yeliseyev "was a very talented chess player, a very bright lad, he was always very popular in the team".

He continued: "Yura always sought unusual methods in everything, he had a predilection for unorthodox solutions... This is a very heavy loss.

"But he didn't go to extremes - he kept within sensible bounds. For example, he'd climb to a height of two metres (6.6ft) and walk along the edge just to show that he had a head for heights."