GMBoris Gelfand

Boris Gelfand was born in Minsk in 1968 to parents who were engineers. His father introduced him to chess through a book when he was five. He trained with Eduard Zelkind, Tamara Golovey and Albert Kapengut and attended Tigran Petrosian's chess school. He won consecutive Belarusian championships in 1984 and 1985. European junior titles followed in 1987 and 1988. FIDE records his grandmaster title in 1989. He later won major tournaments at Wijk aan Zee, Tilburg and Linares. In 1998 he moved to Israel and settled in Rishon LeZion. His 2009 World Cup victory came after a final against Ruslan Ponomariov. He then won the 2011 Candidates matches to challenge Viswanathan Anand. Their 2012 world-championship match ended level after twelve classical games. Anand retained the title in rapid tiebreaks. Gelfand also developed a substantial instructional writing career, including My Most Memorable Games and books on decision-making with Jacob Aagaard. His interest in sustained strategic plans owes much to his study of Akiba Rubinstein. Away from chess, he follows football and supports Barcelona.