Boris Gelfand
| Boris Gelfand | |
|---|---|
During the Tata Steel Chess, 2012
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| Full name | Boris Abramovich Gelfand |
| Country |
Soviet Union Israel |
| Born |
24 June 1968 Minsk, Belarussian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Title | Grandmaster (1989) |
| FIDE rating |
2724 (March 2017) (No. 19 in the September 2016 FIDE World Rankings) |
| Peak rating | 2777 (November 2013) |
Boris Abramovich Gelfand (Belarusian: Барыс Абрамавіч Гельфанд , Barys Abramavich Hel'fand; Hebrew: בוריס אברמוביץ' גלפנד; born 24 June 1968) is an Israeli chess Grandmaster.
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 rapid tie break 2½–1½.
Gelfand has won major tournaments at Wijk aan Zee, Tilburg, Moscow, Linares and Dos Hermanas. He has competed in eleven Chess Olympiads and has held a place within the top 30 players ranked by FIDE rating since January 1990.
Boris Gelfand was born in Minsk, Belarussian SSR, on 24 June 1968. 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 1984-5. In 1985 he won the USSR Junior Championship scoring 9/11 and came second to Yury Balashov in the 1986 Minsk International.
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