It's Gelfand vs Anand for world title: Israel Vs India:

Candidates final on Wednesday at Kazan, will be between Boris Gelfand of Israel and Viswanathan Anand (who is one year younger than Boris).

Interestingly, Anand has met only players younger to him since he faced Anatoly Karpov (1998) and Garry Kasparov (1995) for the world title. Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, who met Anand in 2000, 2008 and 2010 respectively, are all younger to him.

Gelfand showed tremendous fighting qualities to prevail over the young Russian,Alexander Grischuk, who had his chances in the first five games but co

uld not convert them into wins. Gelfand's masterstroke came in the sixth game on Wednesday when he won in 35 moves in Grunfeld Defence.

Curiously, Gelfand had a good record against Anand in tournament play in the 1990s but the Israeli, who was born in Belarus, could not make any headway in the world championship.

However, in the last three years he has been in terrific form, climbing up in world ranking. IT SEEMS THAT THE CANDIDATES FINAL WOULD BE VERY INTERESTING.

CHESS PUZZLE: FOR INTERMEDIATE PLAYERS:

Q. White to play and win in

5 moves. Please try to solve the Puzzle without looking at the solution. The beauty of this end-game is the positioning of Knight--King combination. Please try to solve the Puzzle without looking at the solution.

Sol:

1 Nf4 Kh7

2 Bg5 Kh8

3 Ng6+ Kh7

4 Nf8+ Kh8

5 Bf6++ Mate

Thanks!!