Born in Bucharest, Romania, Șubă, won the Romanian Chess Championship in 1980, 1981, and 1985.[1] Șubă began playing chess at the late age of 19 years old, making him an anomaly among grandmasters. He attended the University of Bucharest and trained in the university's chess club, where his passion for chess grew quickly.[2] He progressed rapidly and by age 27 he had won several local championships and achieved a FIDE rating of 2460.[3]
At the Lloyds Bank Masters tournament in London in 1988, citing difficulties in obtaining visas and participation in tournaments, as well as blackmail threats by Romanian authorities, Șubă defected from Romania and applied for British political asylum for himself and his son, and planned to have his wife and younger son join them in the future.[4][5]
He played for England at the 1989 European Team Chess Championship,[6] though he started playing for Romania again in 1992. In 2017 he switched his national federation to Spain.[7] Suba still participates in chess tournaments.[8]
Șubă is the author of the book Dynamic Chess Strategy and of the monograph The Hedgehog.
Subsequently, Șubă and Kaufman were retroactively declared joint winners of the championship at a FIDE Presidential Board meeting in March 2009 (with Kaufman keeping his resultant promotion to grandmaster).[9]
