Boris Gelfand

Boris Gelfand (בוריס אברמוביץ' גלפנד; Барыс Абрамавіч Гельфанд; Борис Абрамович Гельфанд; born 24 June 1968) is a Belarusian-Israeli chess player.

Boris Gelfand was born in Minsk, in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, on 24 June 1968 to Belarusian Jewish parents.

His parents, Abram and Nella, were engineers.

His father bought him a book about chess, Journey to the Chess Kingdom, by Averbakh and Beilin, when he was five years old.

Recognised as a talent, Gelfand's first coach from 1974 to 1979 was Eduard Zelkind.

Soon after he studied under Tamara Golovey for two years and IM Albert Kapengut for twelve.

In 1980–83, he attended the Tigran Petrosian School.

Early successes included winning the Sokolsky Memorial in 1983 and consecutive Belarusian Chess Championships in 1984 and 1985.

In 1985 he won the USSR Junior Championship scoring 9/11 and came second to Yury Balashov in the 1986 Minsk International.

In his first appearance on the FIDE rating list in July 1987, Gelfand immediately almost reached the top 100.

He became European Junior Champion in 1987, shared second at the USSR Young Masters held in Uzhgorod and shared sixth place at a USSR Championship qualifier event in Sverdlovsk in 1987 with 10/17.

Gelfand's successes saw him ranked in the world's top 40 players in July 1988.

After sharing first place in the USSR Young Masters tournament of 1988 in Vilnius and the OHRA B Group in Amsterdam, he came second in the World Junior Championship to Joël Lautier on tiebreaks and shared first with Sergey Dolmatov at the Klaipeda USSR Championship qualifier.

Gelfand jointly won the European Junior title with Alexey Dreev in December 1988, won the Barcza Memorial held in Debrecen, Hungary, with 7/10 and led the Belarus team to third place in the USSR Juniors Team Championship at Kramatorsk.

In Gelfand's first appearance at the USSR Championship held in Odessa in 1989, he shared second place with Alexander Beliavsky, Dolmatov and Vereslav Eingorn, earning a prize for "greatest amount of material sacrificed in the course of a tournament".

Soon after, he won the Palma de Mallorca Open with 7½/9.

He was awarded the title Grandmaster by FIDE in 1989.

He has competed in eleven Chess Olympiads and held a place within the top 30 players ranked by FIDE from January 1990 to October 2017.

He received invitations to major tournaments in 1990, placing second behind Garry Kasparov with 7½/11 in Linares and Dortmund, sharing first with Vassily Ivanchuk in the Manila Interzonal and third at Tilburg.

A six-time World Championship candidate (1991, 1994–95, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2013), he won the Chess World Cup 2009 and the 2011 Candidates Tournament, making him challenger for the World Chess Championship 2012.

Although the match with defending champion Viswanathan Anand finished level at 6–6, Gelfand lost the deciding rapidplay tiebreak by 2½–1½.

Gelfand has won major tournaments at Wijk aan Zee, Tilburg, Moscow, Linares and Dos Hermanas.

At the Candidates Matches in early 1991, Gelfand defeated Predrag Nikolic 5½-4½ but was beaten in the next round by Nigel Short 3-5.

Despite the disappointment, Gelfand claimed first place at Belgrade with 7½/11 and shared second place with Kasparov at Reggio Emilia, half a point behind Viswanathan Anand.

He shared first place with Valery Salov at Wijk aan Zee in 1992, shared second place at Munich, lost in the final of Tilburg knockout to Michael Adams and shared first with Anand at the Alekhine Memorial held in Moscow.

A solid second place at Munich in 1993 preceded his biggest tournament win to this point, winning the Biel Interzonal with a score of 9/13, earning a spot in the 1994 Candidates Matches.

Gelfand remained ever-present in the world's top 20 players, winning the 1994 editions of Dos Hermanas and Cap d'Agde, Belgrade in 1995, shared first at Tilburg and Vienna in 1996, finished third at Dortmund and shared second place at Groningen.

He came third in a strong Biel tournament and second at the Rubinstein Memorial held in Polanica Zdroj.

Gelfand went on to defeat Adams 5-3 in the quarter-finals and Vladimir Kramnik 4½-3½ in the semi-finals, before losing to Anatoly Karpov in the Candidates Final 6-3 in 1995.

Gelfand's best result at the FIDE Knockout World Championships came in 1997, defeating Joël Lautier (4-2), Vladislav Tkachiev (3½-2½) and Dreev (2.5-1.5) before being knocked out in the semi-finals by eventual tournament winner Anand (1½-½).

In 1998, Gelfand won the Rubinstein Memorial, lost the Cap d'Agde knockout tournament final against Karpov after running out of time in the decisive tiebreak blitz game while having a winning position, won the 1999 edition of Sigeman & Co held in Malmö and the Rubinstein Memorial in 2000.

In 2001, Gelfand shared first place in the rapid section of the Melody Amber tournament (taking first place outright the next year) and came third in Astana.

The next year, he shared first at the NAO Masters in Cannes, won the Cap d'Agde KO and took part in the "Russia vs World" rapid match, scoring 6/10 for the winning World team.

In 2003, he shared third place at Enghien and in 2004 won at Pamplona.

He played in Dortmund, which was the Candidate Tournament for the Classical World Chess Championship 2004, but only managed to finish in third place in the preliminary group, so didn't progress to the knockout stages.

Gelfand shared first in the Bermuda Invitational and Biel in 2005.

He also finished in sixth place at the Chess World Cup 2005, earning a place in the 2007 Candidates Matches.

In 2006, Gelfand shared fifth place with Sergey Karjakin scoring 7/13 at Corus and shared third place at Dortmund.

Gelfand won his Candidates matches against Rustam Kasimdzhanov 5½-3½ and Gata Kamsky 3½-1½, to qualify for the Championship tournament, held in Mexico City.

Despite being ranked seventh in the World Chess Championship 2007 by FIDE rating, Gelfand caused an upset in finishing joint second (third on tiebreak) with Vladimir Kramnik, a point behind Viswanathan Anand.