Anand Runner Up in World Blitz Championship

Anand became runner up after a costly blunder in the last round against Ivanchuk in the 2 days 38 round world blitz championship. Despite a very bad 1st day, Anand showed a great come back in second day by winning games in row and catch up Ivanchuk by round 29. In the last round decider game, both Anand and Ivanchuk had 24.5 points with 1.5 points ahead of the nearest trailer. Anand was completely winning the game but overlooked a night fork by Ivanchuk , proving anything can happen in a 4 minutes plus 2 seconds increment blitz game. Anand is the classical and rapid world chess champion and world bliz runner up.


Final Standings (38 rounds)

Place SNo. Name Fed. FIDE Total S.B. Wins
1 16 Ivanchuk, Vassily UKR 2787 25.5 480 19
2 4 Anand, Viswanathan IND 2801 24.5 437 18
3 3 Grischuk, Alexander RUS 2715 23.5 430.5 14
4 7 Kamsky, Gata USA 2714 23.5 429 16
5 8 Kramnik, Vladimir RUS 2785 21.5 393.75 13
6 1 Leko, Peter HUN 2755 21.5 392.5 13
7 9 Rublevsky, Sergei RUS 2676 21.5 385.75 16
8 18 Morozevich, Alexander RUS 2755 21 378.5 16
9 17 Carlsen, Magnus NOR 2714 20.5 352 15
10 13 Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar AZE 2752 18.5 344.75 13
11 20 Adams, Michael ENG 2729 18.5 337.25 13
12 11 Ponomariov, Ruslan UKR 2705 18 339.5 15
13 5 Kasimdzhanov, Rustam UZB 2690 17.5 319.75 11
14 2 Dreev, Alexey RUS 2607 17 313.5 12
15 14 Gelfand, Boris ISR 2736 17 310.75 10
16 6 Savchenko, Boris RUS 2583 17 291.5 13
17 19 Shirov, Alexei ESP 2739 16 298.75 11
18 12 Karpov, Anatoly RUS 2670 14 252 8
19 10 Bacrot, Etienne FRA 2695 12 235 9
20 15 Korotylev, Alexey RUS 2600 11.5 205.25 7

Vishy Anand is the new World Chess Champion

At last my wait for this day finished. Anand played a super double round robin tournament in Mexico to come out clear winnerof the tournament and new World Chess Champion scoring 9 our fo 13 with 4 wins and 10 draws. He is the only undefeated player in the tournament. He played great chess here showing his deep preparation and spirit and defending nicely at bad times throughout this championship.



Gelfand played a very nice tournament trailing Anand by a point at the finish but a last round victory by Kramnik ensured the equal 8 points for both of him and Kramnik and hence Kramnik became runner up in baclose score calculation.

Its fun time now to enjoy for Indians. They have recently won the Tewnty20 World Cricket Championship and now the world chess championship.

Congratulations to Anand! Enjoy the success.

World Chess Championship 2007 Starts Tomorrow

After a long wait, I will be able to follow a great encounter amongst the 8 strongest chess players in the world now. Yes, Mexico World Chess Champinship 2007 starts tomorrow. It will be category 21 double round-robin tournament. Here is a table that details the participants.

Player	Nat.	Rtn	Birth
Vishwanathan Anand	IND	2792	1969
Vladimir Kramnik	RUS	2769	1975
Alexander Morozevich	RUS	2758	1977
Peter Leko	HUN	2751	1979
Levon Aronian	ARM	2750	1982
Peter Svidler	RUS	2735	1976
Boris Gelfand	ISR	2733	1968
Alexander Grischuk	RUS	2726	1983

Well, I have been waiting to see Anand to be the champion of the chess world. However in recent years the championship has been captured by Kramnik and Topalov instead. This show is the best and probably one of the last few chances of Anand, considering his age, to prove his supremecy once again. The various online polls show Anand as top favorite closely followed by Kramnik. In fact, in a recent interview kasparov nominated Anand as the clear favorite. However, Kramnik is in great shape and Aronian is the other contender for the crown with a good result against both Anand and Kramnik. The other five participants are also capable of making good results in any event. It will be a memorable battle amongst all of them.

Courtesy to Susan Polgar's Blog, here is the official link to watch the games live in action.

http://partidas.chessmexico.com

Here are a few more articles on this.

http://story.mexicostar.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/4b980140662cfc90/id/281684/cs/1/
http://affairsofchess-wydarzenia.blogspot.com/2007/09/anand-top-seed-in-chess-world.html
http://midaschess.blogspot.com/2007/09/mexico-are-you-ready-for-show.html

Anand won Mainz Rapid World Chess Championship for 10th Time

Yes, Anand is still the best rapid chess player. He has won the final against Aronian with a black piece win in the 4th game to take revenge of the loss in Chess960 final against him just a few days back. Now all the eyes on Mexico Classical World Chess Championship. Go Anand, go!

Here is what Anand remembers about his Rapid World Championship Titles during last one and half decade.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/26/stories/2007082656011800.htm

Fide Candidates Match 2007 Round 1

The Candidates Matches for the 2007 World Chess Championship Tournament was held in Elista, Russia, from May 26 to June 14, 2007. A total of 16 candidates played two rounds of six-game matches to fill four places in the 2007 World Championship in Mexico City. The prize fund was US $40,000 per match, most of the money ($320,000) coming from a personal fund of FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, FIDE ($160,000) and the general sponsor, Rosenergomash.

In the most excitng competition of round 1, Aronian and Carlsen faught head to head until Aronian won the last 2 tie blitz games to score a 7-5 win when the classical games drew at 4 draws and 1 win each. leko outplayed Gurevich the same was as Kamsky demolished Bacrot (3.5 - 0.5). Rublevsky defeated Ponomariov and Bereev defeated Polgar by 3.5 - 2.5 margin while Grishchuk comfortably overcame Malakov (3.5 - 1.5). In the other tie-breaks of Shirov vs Adams and Gelfand vs Kasimdzhanov the outcome was identical 5.5 - 3.5 in favor of Shirov and Gelfand respectively. Now we will be looking forward to Round 2 fights that will decide the rest 4 World Chess Mexico 2007 participants.

Round 2 Pairings:

Aronian vs Shirov - I am expecting a very interesting battle.
Grishchuk vs Rublevsky - I think Grishchuk will win.
Gelfand vs Kamsky - My bet is on Kamsky.
Leko vs Bareev - I am quite sure about Leko.

FIDE press director Peter Rajcsanyi summarized the event so far as follows:

The first round of the candidate matches resulted in many colorful and fire-packed games, a few real blunders (from among which many were made in the longer-time-control games), several good combinations, interesting rook sacrifices, not too many draws and a friendly atmosphere among the players, audience and officials.

The outside temperature was high and on many boards there were heated-up struggles in the main playing hall, too. The overall quality of the games is good and the excitement created by the arrangement of bringing all candidate matches into one place pleased most of the local and Internet spectators. On the Internet, the average number of daily visitors reached the sixty thousand level.

Magnus Carlsen is the hero of the first round – no doubt. He became the chess idol of the young Kalmykian girls who may or may not know chess (as he enjoys the same status in Norway, too) while his stamina as well as consistency has been admired all over the world by chess players. His friendly style, delightful and disarming smile and the candid answers pleased media people in the press center all the time. He successfully used the whole chess armory available for him although finally it was not enough against Aronian now. Next time, who knows…

Voted Anand for Chess Oscar 2006

I just voted Anand at http://oscar.fide.com/about.asp for Chess Oscar 2006. The interface is non-intuitive and I am surprised with their look and feel choice. Here is whom I voted:

1st: Anand
2nd: Kramnik
3rd: Topalov
4th: Radjabov

Anand is the highest rated chess player now

Anand deserved it a long time back. But better late than never. Vishy Anand is the highest rated chess player in the world from this April 2007 rating list. He was consistently in the top 3 rated chess player for more than a decade-and-half. Congratualtions to Anand! I hope he will continue to reign for a long time.




http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3784
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/2007/04/its-official-anand-is-king-of-hill.html
http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3771
http://specials.rediff.com/sports/2007/apr/02sld1.htm
http://www.reuters.com/news/video/videoStory?videoId=22787