Travel  |  Business World  |  Women's World  |  Entertainment

Change Your Life!

Anand is the favorite at World Chess Championship

News
Sports
Chat
Travel
Dhaka Today
Yellow Pages
Higher Education
Ask a Doctor
Weather
Currency Rate
Horoscope
E-Cards
B2K Poll
Comment on the Site
B2K Club

November 28, 2000 

NEW DELHI--(UNB/AP) - India's grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand starts as the favorite in the World Chess Championship that opens Monday, with 100 men from 50 countries playing for the dlrs 660,000 winner's purse in the finals in Iran next month. The world's top two chess grandmasters, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, along with their Russian compatriot Anatoly Karpov, have decided to skip the championship, whose first and second rounds are being played at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Delhi.

Kasparov broke away from FIDE, the World Chess Federation, in 1993; and Kramnik is under contract to braingames.net, which must approve his matches, but has not rule out a matchup against the FIDE champion.

he reigning champion, Alexander Khalifman of Russia, who won last year's knockout tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada, is ranked 31st in the world. He has a reputation as a solid, steady player, but has repeatedly been troubled by Anand, who is ranked third.

The Indian grandmaster broke into the chess limelight as a teen-ager by winning the 1987 world Juniors Crown in the Philippines. He has a reputation for perfect technical expertise, blended with an exceptional positional sense and a machinelike calculating ability. Anand plays both the close and open game with ease and smells trouble early.

Anand, considered the world's best player of rapid chess, beat Kasparov in June in the speed game, having lost his 1995 challenge to the Russian in the classic game under the auspices of the now defunct Professional Chess Association.

The men's championship, with a dlrs 3 million prize pool, is being played simultaneously with a first-time women's championship, funded at dlrs 500,000 in total prizes. The women's event winner will be decided on Dec. 16, the same day the two men semifinalists are determined for the Tehran finals that begin Dec. 19.

The breakup of the women's prize money was to be announced later.

The 72 participants in the first round of the men's championship have qualified through their performance in key tournaments during the past year. Anand and another 27 directly seeded players will join in the second round, playing against the 36 victors from the first round.

Only three women players were seeded to the second round: defending world champion and grandmaster Xie Jun of China, former world champion Maia Chiburdanidze of Georgia, and Alisa Galliamova of Russia have been given the seeding to the second round. There will be 58 women players in the first roundEvery round will be a two game mini-match with contestants

playing alternate colors. In the case of ties, fast versions will determine the winners. Another strong contender is the enterprising Russian player,

Alexander Morozevich, with natural skills to complicate any chess position. Morozevich came to notice in 1994 by winning the Lloyds Bank Masters tournament in London. He always has a positive attitude that helps him out of dangerous positions. He plays mainly open positions with the white pieces and has a variety of variations to choose from when sitting on the black side.

Alexei Shirov, a Latvian-born Spaniard, can easily find a place among the most attacking players of the world and will be a top contender with his magical tactics.