Poor old Boris lost more than 40 points over the last year and he has dropped out of the Elo-2700-Club again. Isle of Man wasn’t exactly kind to him, because this time he had to face an underrated opponent who gets his prep from Leko. In order to avoid the drawish mainlines of the Qc2-Semi-Slav Gelfand chose a sideline and actually managed to equalize quite comfortably. In fact he even managed to drum up some play on the queenside, but eventually it all fizzled out and Vincent Keymer simply took over in the trouble phase. The culmination of the game was the unforced 39. Qxd8 which sealed the win.
The method to beat lower-rated players is to get them out of their prep and to slowly outplay them in the middlegame. Gelfand just couldn’t do it and this is good and bad at the same time. Clearly bad for the veteran, but very good for the young newcomer.