Anand to face top British player in opener

Anand to face local boy Adams in London chess opener
TI | Dec 2, 2011, 10.30PM IST

LONDON: World champion Viswanathan Anand will take on local favourite Michael Adams in the opening round of the London Chess Classic 2011, the last major event of the year, on Saturday.

Anand has got a good draw and will start his campaign with the black pieces against Adams.

The Indian will be wielding white against Magnus Carlsen of Norway and Vladimir Kramnik of Ruusia before facing Armenian Levon Aronian with black.

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 British players would have high chances.

Touted as the toughest ever event to be hosted in the UK, the tournament comprises of nine heavyweights of the game taking on each other once in a round robin format.

In all probability, the tournament will be Anand’s last classical engagement before taking on challenger Boris Gelfand of Israel in the World Chess championship title match in May next year at Russia.

The top four highest rated players in the world, Carlsen (2826), Anand (2811), Aronian (2802), Kramnik (2800) along with Hikaru Nakamura (2758) of USA and the British brigade of Adams (2724), Nigel Short (2698), Luke McShane (2671) and David Howell (2633) will fight it out in the 160,000 euro event.

At the last edition of the event, Anand had remained unbeaten but finished joint second.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com