Boris Abramovich Gelfand (born 24 June 1968 in Minsk) is a Belarusian-Israeli chess grandmaster. He won the 2009 World Chess Cup. In 1998, Gelfand emigrated to Israel, where he is their top ranking chess player.
Gelfand was Junior Champion of the Soviet Union at 17, and European Junior Champion two years later. In 1988 he tied for first in the World Junior Championship, the title going to Joel Lautier. He earned the GM title the following year. He has won about 30 tournaments in his career, including tournaments at Wijk aan Zee (in 1992 and 1994) and first places in Biel (1993), Dos Hermanas (1994), Belgrade (1995), Tilburg (1996), Malmo (1999) and Pamplona (2004).
Gelfand has several times qualified for Candidates tournaments for the World Chess Championship. In 1993, he qualified for the Candidates via the Interzonal, and was knocked out in the quarter-final by England's Nigel Short. In the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996 he won the Interzonal, then won his first two Candidates matches, before being eliminated in the semi-final by Anatoly Karpov. He had numerous strong results in the knockout tournaments for the FIDE Championships 1998–2004, with his best result being a semi-finalist in 1997. He played in the 8-player 2002 Dortmund Tournament, which was the Candidates for the Classical World Chess Championship 2004, but failed to reach the semi-finals.
He qualified for the tournament for the World Chess Championship 2007, and surprised most observers by finishing joint second with reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik (third after tie breaks). The tournament and the world championship was won by Viswanathan Anand.
Gelfand won the Chess World Cup 2009, and was automatically seeded into the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012.
The 2012 Candidates match series was held in Kazan, Russia. In game three of the quarterfinals he played the Sicilian defense to defeat Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 2.5–1.5. In the semifinals he faced American Gata Kamsky. After splitting the first four games 2–2, the match went into a rapid playoff. Kamsky won game three in the playoff to go ahead 2–1. This meant Gelfand had to win with black in the final game to avoid elimination. Gelfand was up to the task, and then won the blitz playoff 2–0 to advance to the final.
In the final, he faced Alexander Grischuk. After drawing the first five games, Gelfand won the sixth and final game on the white side of a Grünfeld defence to win the match 3.5–2.5. As winner of the Candidates series, Gelfand face Anand for the 2012 World Championship. In this match Gelfand tied 6–6, but he lost the four-game rapid play tie-breaker.
Yue Wang
Yue Wang is China's highest ever rated chess grandmaster, and the first to reach the elite top 10 in the world.
In 2004, he became China's 18th Grandmaster at the age of 17. In October 2007, Wang became the first Chinese player, and third Asian player, to cross the 2700 rating mark.
Wang is currently ranked 2nd in Asia; #1 is World Champion Viswanathan Anand of India.
Wang Yue was to play on 1st board at the World Team Chess Championship in January 2010, until China dropped out of the event at the last minute.
Winchester College football
Winchester College football, also known as Wincofo or winkies, is a style of football, the game also called soccer, that is played at Winchester College in England during the spring term. The Winchester students call this period ""common time."" It was originally played during the autumn term, or ""short half."" It is very similar to games played at other public schools such as Eton's wall game and Harrow game. The school is located in the city of Winchester in Hampshire, England.
This game was originally played down Kingsgate Street, a long street that runs parallel to the college. However, there were very few rules. The only thing that has not changed is that the canvas (the pitch or field the game is played on) has the same measurements as the part of the street the original version of the game was played on.
Nobody knows when the game was moved. It was moved away from the town to the grassland at the top of St. Catherine's Hill. To stop the ball from going into the canal below, the players used junior men from the college to go fetch it when it was not caught by the players. In the current version of the game, there are still classmates used as watchers who catch stray balls. However, there were problems with this. The biggest is the lines of watchers were depleted due to players being too enthusiastic and colliding with each other, causing injuries. So they introduced ropes to mark out the border of the playing field. These are now a core part of the game.
Nona Gaprindashvili
Nona Gaprindashvili (; born 3 May 1941) is a Georgian chess player. She was the strongest female player of the 1960s and 70s, and became the sixth Women's World Chess Champion (1962–1978). She was the first woman to achieve the Grandmaster title.
In 1961, aged 20, Gaprindashvili won the fourth women's Candidates Tournament, setting up a title match against Russian world champion Elisabeth Bykova. She won the match easily, with a final score of 9−2 (+7−0=4), and went on to defend her title successfully four times. She finally lost her crown in 1978 to another Georgian, Maia Chiburdanidze, by a score of 6½–8½ (+2−4=9).
Gaprindashvili played for Soviet Union in the women's chess Olympiads of 1963, 1966, 1969, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1990, and for Georgia in 1992. She won as many as 25 medals, among which 11 team gold medals and 9 individual gold medals At the Dubai Olympiad 1986 she won all the ten games she played.
She was a five-times winner of the Soviet women's chess championship: in 1964, 1973, 1981, 1983, and 1985. During her career Gaprindashvili successfully competed in men's tournaments, tying for first place at Lone Pine, California in 1977.
In 1978 Gaprindashvili became the first woman to be awarded the Grandmaster title. She was awarded the title partly as a result of winning Lone Pine 1977 against a field of 45 players, mostly grandmasters. Although she did not meet the technical requirements for the GM Title, this result was so spectacular that FIDE found it sufficient.
Pal Benko wrote in "Chess Life & Review" (January 1979):
Nona was the first President of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia. In 2009 she won in Condino, Italy the World Senior Championship for women.
Laffy Taffy
Laffy Taffy is a type of taffy that comes in many fruit flavours. It is made by Nestlé and the Willy Wonka Candy Company. Laffy Taffy comes with jokes written on the wrapper. A piece of Laffy Taffy has 160 calories.
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico (10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian painter and writer. In the years before World War I, he founded the "Scuola metafisica" art movement. The name means "Metaphysical school". The "Scuola metafisica" was a big influence on the surrealist painters. After 1919, he became interested in more traditional ways of painting. He began to paint in a neoclassical style.
De Chirico was born in Volos, Greece. His parents were Italian. He studied art first in Athens and then in Florence. In 1906 he went to Munich in Germany where he studied at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.
Chris Bonington
Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CBE (born 6 August 1934 in Hampstead, London) is a British mountaineer, someone who climbs mountains.
His has been to the Himalayas nineteen times. Four of those times, he climbed Mount Everest. He was the first to climb of the south part of the mountain Annapurna.
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