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Boris Gelfand

Boris Gelfand is a Belarusian and Israeli chess grandmaster who challenged Viswanathan Anand for the World Chess Championship in 2012.

born 1968The 2012 World Championship matchWinning the 2009 Chess World CupWinning the 2011 Candidates Tournament

Born: 24 June 1968, Minsk
Occupation: chess player, non-fiction writer

Boris Gelfand was born in 1968 in Minsk

Boris Gelfand was born on 24 June 1968 in Minsk, in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. His Jewish parents, Abram and Nella, were engineers. His first chess coach, from 1974 to 1979, was Eduard Zelkind.

He won the USSR Junior Championship in 1985 and became European Junior Champion in 1987. FIDE gave him the grandmaster title in 1989.

He played in the Candidates Matches in 1991 and in 1994 and 1995, when he lost the final to Anatoly Karpov. He moved to Israel in 1998 and later led the Israeli team at Chess Olympiads. He won the Chess World Cup in 2009 and the Candidates Tournament in 2011.

In 2012 he faced Anand in Moscow for the world title. The classical games ended level at 6-6, and Anand won the rapid tiebreak to keep the title.

He finished fifth in the 2013 Candidates Tournament and won the Tal Memorial that year. He is married to Maya, a journalist and writer, and they have a daughter and a son. He lives in Rishon LeZion.