Boris Gelfand

Boris Gelfand (2006)
Association	Soviet Union (until 1991) Belarus (1992 to 1998) Israel (since 1999)
Born	June 24, 1968 Minsk , Belarus
title	International Master (1987) Grand Master (1989)
Current  Elo rating	2676 (August 2020)
Best Elo rating	2777 (Nov 2013 - Jan 2014)
Tab at the FIDE (English)

Boris Gelfand ( Hebrew בוריס גלפנד, Belarusian Барыс Абрамавіч Гельфанд / Barys Abramawitsch Helfand , Russian Борис Абрамович Гельфанд / Boris Abramowitsch Gelfand ; * June 24, 1968 in Minsk ) is a former Belarusian chess player who now plays for Israel . Today he lives in Rishon LeZion . In 2012 he was runner-up against Viswanathan Anand .

Career

Gelfand's first major successes in chess came at the end of the 1980s, and since the early 1990s he has consistently been among the best in the world. In 1985 he became Soviet junior champion. At the beginning of 1988 he won the European Youth Championship in Arnhem ahead of Wassyl Ivanchuk . A year later he was second in Arnhem behind Alexei Drejew (after fine evaluation) at the European Youth Championship. In 1988 he finished fourth in the Junior World Championship in Adelaide , which Joël Lautier won at the age of 15. The Grandmaster title awarded him the FIDE 1989. Gelfand won together with Vassily Ivanchuk, the interzonal of Manila in 1990 and qualified for his first for the candidates tournament . He was eliminated in the quarter-finals ( Brussels 1991) against the later winner of the candidate fights, the Englishman Nigel Short with 3: 5 (+2 = 2-4). In 1993 Gelfand won the interzonal tournament in Biel and qualified again for the candidate fights. After initially defeating Michael Adams (with 5: 3 (+3 = 4 −1) in Wijk aan Zee 1994), he surprisingly beat the eventual world champion Wladimir Kramnik with 4.5: 3.5 (+2 = 5 −1 ) (in Sanghi Nagar / India 1994). Only Anatoli Karpov stopped Gelfand when he beat him 6: 3 (+1 = 4 −4 from Gelfand's point of view, in Sanghi Nagar / India 1995).

Even after FIDE had abolished the classic determination of the challenger of the world champion , namely through zone, interzone and candidate tournaments, Gelfand was successful in his attempts to intervene in the world championship fight. In the first FIDE World Cup knockout system (less tournament games are played at the significantly and where often only rapid and blitz games decide on the next round) in Groningen in 1997 he reached the semi-finals, where he the Indian Viswanathan Anand defeated . In 1999 he was eliminated from the eventual tournament winner Alexander Chalifman . In New Delhi 2000 he was eliminated from the eventual finalist Alexei Schirow . In Moscow 2001 he was defeated by Pyotr Svidler . He did not take part in the FIDE World Cup in Tripoli in 2004, as the Libyan government did not allow Israeli chess players to enter and only allowed them to do so shortly before the start of the tournament without seconds .

In the 2006/2007 World Cup cycle, FIDE reverted to the candidate tournament mode. Gelfand had qualified for the candidate fights at the 2005 FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk (RUS). These took place in May and June 2007 in Kalmykia (RUS), where he was one of the eight players who were allowed to take part in the 2007 World Chess Championship in Mexico City in September through victories over Rustam Kasimjanov and Gata Kamsky . The competition was carried out as a round-robin tournament - everyone against everyone with a round trip. With 8 points from 14 games, Gelfand reached third place behind Viswanathan Anand and Wladimir Kramnik , which was his greatest success at a world championship to date.

World Championship 2012

In December 2009 he won the World Chess Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk ; in the final he prevailed after a playoff against Ruslan Ponomarjow . With this success he qualified for the 2011 Candidates Tournament in Kazan , which he won with victories over Şəhriyar Məmmədyarov , Gata Kamsky and in the final over Alexander Grishchuk . This secured Gelfand the right to challenge World Champion Viswanathan Anand at the 2012 World Chess Championship. In the world championship match in May 2012, Gelfand lost to Anand after an even main fight (+1 = 10 −1) and a tiebreak that was decisive in rapid chess games with 1.5: 2.5.

More Achievements

Gelfand's other great tournament successes include victories in Moscow 1992, Dos Hermanas 1994, Belgrade 1995, Vienna 1996, Polanica-Zdrój 1998 and 2000, Cannes 2002 and Bermuda 2005. After a few years, in which, according to Gelfand, he was not among the top tournaments was invited, and he only proved his affiliation to the best in the world through the successes described above in the World Cup cycles, Gelfand only regularly won top tournaments again after the World Championship fight against Anand in 2012.

At the FIDE Grand Prix 2012-2013 he shared first place in both the first tournament in London and the last in Paris . He won the Tal Memorial in Moscow in June 2013 in front of Magnus Carlsen , Viswanathan Anand, Wladimir Kramnik and Fabiano Caruana, among others . He also shared first place with Levon Aronian at the 2013 Alekhine Memorial and came back in front of Viswanathan Anand and Wladimir Kramnik. In 2014 he won the first tournament of the FIDE Grand Prix 2014-2015 in Baku together with Fabiano Caruana.

Gelfand also won the 2002 rapid chess tournament in Cap d'Agde , which was held a year later in the same mode as the FIDE rapid chess world championship.

National team

Gelfand has participated in eleven chess Olympiads since 1990 , in 1990 with the Soviet team that won the tournament, in 1994 and 1996 with the Belarusian team and since 2000 in all Olympiads with the Israeli team. Israel was most successful in 2008 with a second place, where Gelfand also achieved the second best individual record on the top board. Gelfand took part in the team world championship in 2005 and 2010 with Israel, in the team European championship in 1989 with the Soviet team, which won the tournament, in the four events from 1999 to 2005 with the Israeli team, which came second in 2003 and 2005.

societies

In the Russian team championship Gelfand played from 2004 to 2006 for Termosteps Samara , 2007 for Elara Tscheboksary and from 2008 to 2011 for the team of SchSM-64 Moscow , with which he became champions in 2010 and 2011. In the German Federal Chess League Gelfand played two competitions for SG Porz in the 1996/97 season . He was also registered in the Bundesliga in the 1999/2000 season for SG 1868-Aljechin Solingen and in the 2007/08 season for SC Remagen , but he was not used in both seasons. In the 2014/15 season Gelfand played for SK Schwäbisch Hall .

In the Austrian State League A Gelfand played a game for SK Hohenems in the 1995/96 season , for which he was registered until 1999, but did not contest any further competition. In the 2008/09 season he played at SK Advisory Invest Baden , where he was registered in the following season, but was not used. In the Spanish team championship he played for Gros XT in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009 . In the Czech Extraliga , Gelfand will play for Moravská Slavia Brno in the 2019/20 season .

He took part in the European Club Cup fourteen times, namely from 1995 to 1999 for Agrouniverzal Zemun , from 2003 to 2005 for Polonia Plus GSM Warsaw , 2006 for Elara Tscheboksary , 2008 for MIKA Yerevan and from 2009 to 2012 for SchSM -64 Moscow . With the team he reached second place in 1999, 2003 and 2005 and third place in 2012, and in 2009 he achieved the third-best result on the top board in the individual ranking.

Game example

Gelfand-Anand

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Position after 19.… Rfd8

Gelfand won the following game with the white pieces at the 1993 Biel interzonal tournament against Anand.

Gelfand – Anand 1-0

Biel, July 24, 1993

Semi-Slav Defense , D47

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Nf3 Nbd7 6. Bd3 dxc4 7. Bxc4 b5 8. Bd3 Bb7 9. a3 b4 10. Ne4 Nxe4 11. Bxe4 Qc7 12. axb4 Bxb4 + 13. Bd2 Bxd2 + 14. Nxd2 c5 15. Qc2 Qb6 16. dxc5 Qxc5 17. Qa4 Rb8 18. 0–0 0–0 19. Qxd7 Rfd8 diagram 20. Bxh7 + Kxh7 21. Qxf7 Rxd2 22.Ra4 Qg5 23. g3 e5 24.Rh4 + Qxh4 25. gxh4 Rd6 26.h5 Be4 27. Qe7 Rbb6 28. Qxe5 Re6 29.Qf4 1: 0

Private life

Gelfand is married to the journalist Maya . A daughter was born in September 2005 and a son was born in 2011.

Works

• My best games , Edition Olms, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-283-00452-8 .
• Positional Decision Making in Chess , Quality Chess, Glasgow 2015, ISBN 978-1-78483-006-9 . (in cooperation with Jacob Aagaard )
• Dynamic Decision Making in Chess , Quality Chess 2016, ISBN 978-1-78483-013-7 . (in cooperation with Jacob Aagaard)

Web links

Commons : Boris Gelfand  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Boris Gelfand at the World Chess Federation FIDE (English)
• Replayable chess games by Boris Gelfand on chessgames.com (English)
• Ulrich Stock: We're not boxers , interview with Boris Gelfand, ZEIT Online , April 26, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ^ Matthias Wahls : Soviet double success at EM . JugendSchach Nr. 1 / February '89, pp. 3–6 (report, table and games).
2. ^ Matthias Wahls: Junior World Championships with surprises . Schach-Echo -Verlag, JugendSchach edition 0/88, pp. 3–5 (report with picture and games).
3. ↑ Chessbase News: Anand remains world champion
4. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
5. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at team world championships on olimpbase.org (English)
6. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at the European Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
7. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at Russian team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
8. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at Spanish team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
9. ↑ Boris Gelfand's results at European Club Cups on olimpbase.org (English)
10. ↑ Chessbase News: Boris Gelfand is back . Retrieved May 21, 2012.