New Delhi: World Chess Champion and NIIT Mind Champion Viswanathan Anand will participate in the London Chess Classic 2011, the last major Classical event of this year. Touted as the toughest ever event to be hosted in the UK, the Chess Classic comprises of nine heavyweights of the game taking on each other once, in a Round Robin format. This incidentally in all probability will be Anand’s last Classical engagement before he takes on Challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel in the World Chess championship title Match in May 2012 at Russia.
The top four highest rated players in the World, Magnus Carlsen of Norway (2826), V Anand (2811), Levon Aronian (2802) of Armenia, Vladimir Kramnik (2800) of Russia along with Hikaru Nakamura (2758) of USA along with the British brigade of Michael Adams (2724), Nigel Short (2698), Luke McShane (2671) and David Howell (2633) will fight it out under classical time control where 3 points will be awarded for a victory and one point for a draw. The Sofia Rule will also be in place and will curb short, agreed draws. Then games will begin 3.00PM GMT and 8.30PM IST.
The prize fund is Euros 160,000. There will be a prize of Euros 1000 everyday for the best played game. The odd number of players in the Classic ensures that each player has a bye in every round and this player will assist in the commentary for that day. Anand has a rest day in the second round and will be joining the commentators to comment on the other games.
Anand has a good draw and will start his campaign with the Black pieces against localite Michael Adams . He will be wielding White against Carlsen and kramnik and will play with Blacks against Aronian. The race for the title is expected to be a quadrangular one between Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian and in all probability the player scoring heavily against the Britishers would have high title taking chances. Nakamura is also a tough opponent, capable of creating big upsets.
At the last 2010 edition in London, Anand had remained unbeaten but finished joint second.
The NIIT Mind Champion will be hoping to sign off the year in style and also get into a good frame of mind before the World title clash next year.
