Boris Gelfand

Boris Gelfand belongs to a generation of Soviet-trained grandmasters who came of age at the moment the Soviet Union itself dissolved. Many of his peers moved to Western Europe or the United States and partly assimilated into local chess cultures. Gelfand emigrated to Israel in 1998 and remained there, and his game retained a Soviet character — classical, deeply prepared, patient — long after the chess world had moved toward more eclectic styles.

Early years in Minsk

Gelfand was born in Minsk, the capital of the Belarusian SSR, in 1968. He learned chess from his father at age four and joined the Minsk Pioneers’ Palace — the city’s main chess school for talented children — at six. His most important early teacher was Albert Kapengut, a master who trained several of Belarus’s strongest players. By the time Gelfand was a teenager he was already a recognised prospect within the Soviet chess system; he won the European Junior Championship in 1987–88 and finished second in the World Junior Championship in 1988.

He earned his grandmaster title in 1989 at twenty, late by current standards but normal for the Soviet system, in which titles were earned through tournament results rather than rushed for milestone reasons.

The 1990s and the FIDE cycle

Through the 1990s Gelfand was a fixture of the world top-ten. He played in multiple Candidates cycles during the era when the championship picture was complicated by the split between FIDE and Garry Kasparov’s PCA. His best result of the period was reaching the final of the 1994–95 FIDE Candidates — defeating Adams in the quarterfinals and Kramnik in the semifinals — before losing to Anatoly Karpov in the final at Sanghi Nagar in 1995.

He won a series of strong tournaments: Belgrade Investbank 1991, Wijk aan Zee 1992 (tied), Tilburg 1996 (tied). His tournament-form rating peaked late, partly because his style — patient classical chess, long preparation, willingness to defend uncomfortable positions — matured more slowly than the sharper styles around him.

Emigration and reinvention

Gelfand moved to Israel in 1998 with his wife Maya and represented the Israeli federation from that point forward. He led Israel to the silver medal at the 2008 Dresden Olympiad — the country’s best-ever finish, achieved alongside a strong supporting cast that included Sutovsky and Smirin.

His career found its second wind in his late thirties. He won the 2009 World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, defeating Jakovenko, Karjakin, and Ponomariov in the final three rounds, and earning a place in the Candidates cycle that led to the next World Championship match.

The 2012 World Championship

Gelfand won the 2011 Candidates matches in Kazan ahead of Aronian, Kramnik, Grischuk, and others — an upset on the rating-favourite scale but a logical outcome given his form and his fit to the match format. He played seven Candidates matches and lost none of them; only Grischuk, in the final, took him to tiebreaks.

The World Championship match against Anand was held in Moscow in May 2012. After ten draws, Gelfand won game seven with a calm positional grind; Anand levelled in game eight with a sharp tactical win. The remaining classical games were drawn. The match score 6–6 went to a four-game rapid tiebreak, which Anand won 2.5–1.5.

Gelfand was forty-three at the time of the match — older than any World Championship challenger since Vassily Smyslov’s 1984 Candidates run. The match was widely covered for the quality of preparation on both sides: every game ended decisively or in a clearly principled draw, and several openings (the Slav, the Sicilian Sveshnikov, the Grünfeld) received theoretical updates that remained relevant for years.

After 2012

Gelfand reached his peak rating, 2777, in November 2013 — a year and a half after the championship match, at age forty-five. He continued to play in the top tier through the late 2010s, participating in the 2013 Candidates Tournament in London, and remaining a regular at Tata Steel, the Sinquefield Cup, and other elite events.

His later years have included a substantial output as an author and trainer. His three-volume Positional Decision Making in Chess, Dynamic Decision Making in Chess, and Technical Decision Making in Chess (Quality Chess, 2015–2020) became standard references for advanced players, particularly the volumes on positional and technical play.

Legacy

Gelfand’s career is unusual in its longevity at the top. He was rated in the world top-ten for parts of three decades; he played a World Championship match in his fifth decade; and he remained a respected, if no longer top-ten, presence in elite chess in his fifties. His chess is a survival of a Soviet classicism that has otherwise largely vanished from elite practice — the willingness to defend slightly worse positions for many moves, the preference for deeply prepared classical openings over computer-assisted novelty hunting, the patience to win small advantages over forty or fifty moves.

He has trained a generation of Israeli players, several of whom have become grandmasters under his influence. His work as an author has been particularly influential among players in the 2400–2600 range, for whom his books represent a missing middle in chess literature between general principles and computer-engine analysis.