Boris Gelfand was born in Minsk, Byelarussian SSR on June 24, 1968. He was Junior Champion of the former Soviet Union at 17, European Junior Champion in 1987 and runner-up one year later. In 1989, he won a tournament in Debrecen, and triumphed in Palma de Mallorca on the GMA Tournament. Since 1990, he is a constant invited participant of the super tournaments. His debut on the super tournament in Linares was successful, finished second, and qualified for the Candidates via the Interzonal in Manila tiding with Vasily Ivanchuk. In Dortmund and Tilburg he was runner-up, while at the Olympiad in Novi Sad (Újvidék) Gelfand was member of the gold medalist Soviet team. He won his first Candidates match against Predrag Nikolic of Yugoslavia, but was knocked out in the second round by Nigel Short. In Reggio Emilia, he finished second behind Viswanathan Anand in dead heat with Gary Kasparov. In 1992, Gelfand won the Aljechin Memorial in Moscow and triumphed at the Interzonal in 1993, Biel. It’s worth noting that Gelfand won the last two Interzonals that were held as mentioned, Manila, 1990 and Biel, 1993. In 1994, he won his candidate matches against Michael Adams and Vladimir Kramnik, but, although he took the lead, lost in the semi-finals against Anatoly Karpov 6-3.

He had numerous individual successes: won twice at the Invest Bank Competition in Belgrade (1991, 1995), prevailed in Dos Hermanas (1994), in Vienna and Tilburg (both in 1996). In 1997, Viswanathan Anand was the only player to beat him in a knock-out style semi-final, then he won twice in Polanica Zdroj (1998, 2000).
In 1998, he immigrated to Israel and settled in Rishon LeZion. Since 2000, he has played in the Israeli Team (in 1994 and 1996 he represented Byelorussia).
In the World Championship in New Delhi he was beaten by Shirov in the last-16 stage, one year later, in Moscow, he was knocked out by Svindler in the quarter-final.
Both in 2001 and 2002, he could win the Amber rapid-tournament. In 2003, he visited Hungary twice, first he played in Budapest in the Tehetség és Kurázsi (Talent and Courage) Tournament, later he defeated Judit Polgár 6-2 in the rapid duel of the I. Marx György Memorial. In Plovdiv Gelfand was the top player of the runner-up European Champion Israeli Team. 2005 was a year full of success for Gelfand. He vanquished both on the Bermudas and in Biel and through his 6th place in the World Cup he was qualified for the Candidates for the World Chess Championship, Mexico, 2007. He was the board-player of the Israeli Team in the European Championship in Gothenburg where they defended the silver medal. One year later he was the top player of the Israeli team ranked 4th at the Olympiad in Turin.

After six draws, he won his Candidates matches against the former world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov (in rapid tie-breaks) and Gata Kamsky, to qualify for the championship tournament in September, 2007. Gelfand’s performance during the whole world championship was far beyond expectations by finishing second in dead heat with reigning World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. His only loss took place due to a serious mistake. At the Tal Memorial in Moscow, thanks to his nine draws, he finished joint third, while in November 2008, he stood out as the leader of the silver medalist Israeli team at the Dresden Olympiad with an extraordinary performance of 7.5 points out of 10 games.

In 2009, he won the ACP rapid World Cup defeating the Russian Peter Svidler in the final and finished second at the super tournament in Bazna.
In the Chess World Cup 2009, in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia Gelfand was the top seed player and scored a well deserved victory. As he has been a top-rank theoretician and was prepared perfectly, he prevailed over Judit Polgár, reigning World Junior Champion Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Dmitry Jakovenko. In the semi-final he inflicted a double defeat over Sergey Karjakin of (at that time) Ukraine to assure himself of being in the final. He then faced former FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov for the championship, and, after an extraordinary struggle, won the match 7-5 in rapid tie breaks and blitz games. In the final of four games only draws were played, rapid play-off was to decide. Draw again, then Gelfand took the lead, one more draw and finally Ponomariov settled the score. Blitz games were to play, where Gelfand won the first, Ponomariov tied again, but with the help of two wins the Israeli player assured himself the triumph that meant him to be Candidate again.

Gelfand played in the Grand Prix series, as well. Among his for tournaments he performed best in Jermuk, Armenia, where he tied for the second place in aggregate, however, he finished 11th. As far as the rapid games are concerned, his biggest success is the triumph in Leon, where he prevailed over Levon Aronian of Armenia.
Boris Gelfand beside the World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Vasily Ivanchuk of the Ukraine is one of the most significant personalities within the ’elderly players’. He is ranked 13th in the valid world ranking list of 1 July, 2010 with 2739 ELO-points

Gelfand’s most important triumphs:
Manila (Interzonal) 1990
Belgrade 1991
Moscow Aljechin-Memorial 1992
Biel (Interzonal) 1993
Dos Hermas 1994
Belgrade 1995
Vienna, Tilburg 1996
Polanica Zdroj 1998
Sigeman & Co 1999
Polanica Zdroj 2000
Amber (rapid) 2001
Amber (rapid) 2002
Pamplona 2004
Bermuda, Biel 2005
Odessa (ACP rapid World Cup) 2009
Khanty-Mansiysk, (World Cup) 2009
Leon (rapid) 2010

One very interesting game of his career
Face to face all games download in *.pgn format