Boris Gelfand
[7][8] In Gelfand's first appearance at the USSR Championship held in Odessa in 1989, he shared second place with Alexander Beliavsky, Dolmatov and Vereslav Eingorn, earning a prize for "greatest amount of material sacrificed in the course of a tournament".He received invitations to major tournaments in 1990, placing second behind Garry Kasparov with 7½/11 in Linares and Dortmund,[10][11] sharing first with Vassily Ivanchuk in the Manila Interzonal and third at Tilburg.Gelfand's best result at the FIDE Knockout World Championships came in 1997, defeating Joël Lautier (4-2), Vladislav Tkachiev (3½-2½) and Dreev (2.5-1.5) before being knocked out in the semi-finals by eventual tournament winner Anand (1½-½).He played in Dortmund, which was the Candidate Tournament for the Classical World Chess Championship 2004, but only managed to finish in third place in the preliminary group, so didn't progress to the knockout stages.Gelfand won his Candidates matches against Rustam Kasimdzhanov 5½-3½ and Gata Kamsky 3½-1½, to qualify for the Championship tournament, held in Mexico City.[22] Despite being ranked seventh in the World Chess Championship 2007 by FIDE rating, Gelfand caused an upset in finishing joint second (third on tiebreak) with Vladimir Kramnik, a point behind Viswanathan Anand.In the quarterfinals, he won a complex struggle on the black side of the Najdorf Defense in game three to defeat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2½–1½ and advance to the semifinals, where he faced American Gata Kamsky.Soon after the match, Gelfand shared first place with Veselin Topalov and Mamedyarov at the FIDE Grand Prix event held in London, with a last round win over Kasimdzhanov, scoring 7/11.[30] In June 2013, Gelfand won the Tal Memorial beating Alexander Morozevich, Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura, scoring 6/9, half a point ahead of Magnus Carlsen.[32] Gelfand bounced back from a fourth-round exit from the World Cup to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave by sharing first with Caruana in the final FIDE Grand Prix in Paris.He finished fourth in the Grand Prix overall standings with 325 points missing out on a Candidates place due to his weak results in the Tashkent and Beijing events."[38] Jacob Aagaard commented "But Gelfand is not a natural attacker; instead he is a deep strategic player who likes to get into the logic of a position - and to keep control".
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