Gelfand Wins 34th Leon Masters

GM Boris Gelfand won the 34th edition of the Leon Masters, held on Chess.com for the second year in a row due to the pandemic. Gelfand beat GM Leinier Dominguez in the blitz tiebreak of the final to win his second Leon title.

The annual chess festival in Leon, Spain, is still going strong. Once again, the measures for fighting the coronavirus in Spain did not stop the organizers from setting up another event this year.

There were a few activities in the city, such as a photo exhibition, an event with giant chess sets, and a lecture about the history of the tournament. The actual chess activities, which included an open and a youth tournament, were played on our site.

Los chicos en plena faena de montaje de tableros. pic.twitter.com/RKUijJel6W

— Magistral de León (@ajedrezleon) June 29, 2021

The main event was once again a rapid knockout (20|10 games) with two semifinals and a final. In the first semifinal, Dominguez, last year's winner, eliminated Women's World Champion Ju Wenjun. In that match, the second game is the most interesting:

Gelfand beat the local participant, GM Jaime Santos, in the other semifinal. The 25-year-old Spanish GM put up a good fight against his opponent of more than twice his age, in a match that started with a draw and then saw three wins for Black in a row.

Here's the third 0-1 and the second for Gelfand:

In the big final on Sunday, Dominguez started with a win, but Gelfand leveled the score right away. With two draws in the other rapid games, a blitz tiebreak of two 5|3 games was played .

Gelfand struck in the second game with the black pieces. It was a continuation of a theoretical discussion in the Rauzer Sicilian in this match and saw some nice tactical possibilities in the middlegame. Eventually, Gelfand managed to trick his opponent in a drawn R-B endgame:

All games