BORIS GELFAND
Israeli grand master Boris Gelfand is the new king of the chess. He won the ‘Chess World Cup’ on Monday by defeating the former world champion Ukraine’s Ruslan Pnomariov in the finals tie-breaker with a score of 7-5. Now, he gained a title as ‘Chess World Cup’ holder which is the third most prestigious in the world of chess. As winner of the ‘Chess World Cup 2009′, he is qualified for ‘World Chess Championship 2011′.
BIOGRAPHY
Boris Abramovich Gelfand was born on 24th June, 1968 in Minsk, Belarus. He started playing chess at the age of five and won the USSR’s youth chess championship at the age of 17. Two years later, he gained ‘European youth chess championship’. In 1988, he gained Grand Master title. In 1992, he was ranked the world’s third best chess player after chess legends Gary Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. Currently he is in sixth rank position in the world and has won over 30 major championships. In addition, he is also Israel’s number one ranked chess player. He is the holder of “International Grandmaster” title and has represented three different countries including USSR, Belarus and Israel in the Chess Olympiad. He had several strong World Chess Championship performances, but he never won the World Chess Championship. In ‘FIDE World Chess Championship 1996′, he was defeated by Anatoly Karpov in the semi final and in ‘World Chess Championship 2007′, he reached in the third position after Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik. In the ‘Chess World Cup 2009′, Gelfand reached in the final by defeating Judit Polgar, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Dmitry Jakovenko, and Sergey Karjakin. In the final, he defeated the former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov and qualified for ‘World Chess Championship 2011′. In addition to the chess, he is the lover of football and he supports ‘FC Barcelona’ team. Now he lives in Rishon Lezion with his journalist wife Maya and a daughter.