Anand expected to arrive in the end of this week for the WCC match with Topalov
World Chess Championship 2010 details from various sources
The World Chess Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov is starting in Sofia in a little more than a week.
The Challenger Veselin Topalov is already in Bulgaria. He arrived from the Canary Islands, where he had training camp, and went directly to Sandanski (a city in the South West of the country) together with all his team. They will stay until the 19th of April in Hotel Pirin where they will continue the preparation and after that will move to Grand Hotel Sofia.
Viswanathan Anand is expected to arrive Friday evening and go directly to his hotel – Hilton. According to an interview with the World Chess Championship organizing committee for Sega, all conditions set by Aruna Anand during the inspection are met. The special curtain from Germany preventing visual contact is also on the way to Sofia.
Another mainstream newspaper, Novinar, brought to light additional details after an interview with Stefan Sergiev, president of BCF. “Each team will have a budget of 12 000 eur for food. As far as I know Aruna Anand has already agreed on the menu with the chef in Hilton. There was all inclusive option, but both teams preffered to have personal plans.”
Some details from the opening ceremony program are also known. In the beginning a 20 minutes movie will be projected. It is about chess history, the beginning of the game in India, and its spreading to the Balkans thanks to the proto-Bulgarians.
The presentation of each player at the opening ceremony will be 4-5 minutes, with their favorite songs in the background.
Stay tuned for more details on Chessdom.com!
I am a Bulgarian but that part with the movie is just cheesy.
Why did Anand agree to play in Topalov’s home turf?
Would have been far better to have it in a neutral place — such as New York or San Francisco.
Or perhaps Las Vegas — they should be able to generate quite a bit of betting money 🙂