Awarded the IM title in 1955, he finished equal third in the USSR Championship (1955) and shared tenth place in the Gothenburg Interzonal (1955). He was also a strong match player, defeating Isaac Boleslavsky in 1944, Alexey Suetin in 1950 and Ludek Pachman in 1956.
He was first noticed in the Trade Union Team Championship in 1946 when he put up stiff resistance against Isaac Boleslavsky. At the time Ilivitsky, playing for the Metallurg Sports Society, had a First Category rating (about 2100 Elo) and through subtle maneuvering he also achieved a draw against Lilienthal. Ilivitsky showed little regard for opening theory, but was an excellent positional and defensive player.
Not long after, in the Sverdlovsk semi-final of the USSR Championship in 1947, he scored 8.5-3.5 and tied for second which won him the Master title and the right to play in the final where he tied with Lilienthal with a score of 8.0-10.0.
Working as an engineer at the Ural Engineering Works, Ilivitsky tied for first in the Russian Federation Championship with Dubinin and won first in 1949. By 1955 he was good enough to to tie with Botvinnik, Petrosian and Spassky for third place in the 20th USSR Championship which qualified him for the Gothenberg Interzonal where he scored +1 which included a win over Geller. He later beat Ludek Pachman in a play-off match.
Unable to sustain himself at the very top of the Soviet system, he lacked opportunities to play outside the USSR. Chessmetrics assigns Ilivitsky a rating of 2639 in December 1955 placing him at number 31 in the world. This put him in a group that included such players as Benko, Unzicker, Panno, Evans, Bisguier, Eliskases and O’Kelly.
He died in Sverdlovsk in the Ukraine at the age of 68 on November 28, 1989 when he committed suicide by jumping out a window as did Latvian player Alvis Vitolinsh and Estonian GM Lembit Oll.
Jumping or falling out windows seems to be a danger for chess players. In 1905 Harry N. Pillsbury tried to commit suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of a Philadelphia hospital where he was being treated for mental disorders.
In 2006 the promising British player Jessica Gilbert, 19, was found dead outside the Hotel Labe in Pardubice after apparently falling out the window of her hotel room.
In 2008 a court in the Russian Republic of Udmurtia sentenced a man to six years in prison after he got so upset over losing a game that he threw his opponent out of a window. 43-year-old Aleksey Valentikhin came to visit his friend, a 60-year-old pensioner, who lived nearby. After several losses in a row, Valentikhin attacked his rival and threw him out of the window. The victim had several broken bones and injuries to his lungs and later died in hospital.
In 2016 a Soviet junior, Yuri Yeliseyev age 20, died after apparently plunging from a balcony on the 12th floor of a Moscow apartment.
This should be enough for any chess player to develop defenestraphobia.
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