Boris Gelfand, Israel’s top-ranked chess player, won the 2009 Chess World Cup by defeating former world champion Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in a playoff Dec. 14 in the Russian town of Khanty-Mansiysk.
Gelfand, a grand master from Belarus who immigrated to Israel 1998, took the $120,000 top prize. Gelfand, 41, was the No. 1 seed among 128 players in the event, which had a prize pool of $1.6 million. The resident of Rishon LeZion, Israel, is ranked sixth in the world and is now eligible to compete in the 2010 World Championships as one of the eight best players in the world. — jta