Chess: Kasimdzhanov to assist Anand at World Championship

Here is a report on Anand’s preparation for the World Chess Championships.

Indian ace Viswanathan Anand named former World champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov as one of his seconds for the high-profile World Championship match against Russian Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik , which gets underway in Bonn, Germany , on Tuesday.

Apart from Kasimdzhanov, Anand will also utilize the services of his trusted partner Peter Heine Nielsen of Denmark, Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland and Indian national champion Surya Shekhar Ganguly.

The championship, to be played over 12 classical games and then — in the event of a tied result — over games of shorter duration, carries a total prize pool of Euro 1.5 million, which will be equally split between the players.

After Kramnik’s announcement of having Hungarian Peter Leko in his camp, there was much speculation on Anand’s team composition for the historical match. The Indian showed he indeed had an ace up his sleeves in the form of Kasimdzhanov, a former World champion in the knock-out format.

Apart from Leko, Kramnik’s two other seconds are Sergey Rublevskyi (Russia ) and Laurent Fressinet (France ).

Meanwhile, Kasimdzhanov’s appointment also ended speculation over Magnus Carlsen’s possible presence in Anand’s team. The Norwegian wonder-kid will be playing the European Club Cup in Greece during the World Championship.

Going by track record, Kramnik holds a slight edge as he had beaten now-retired Garry Kasparov in the year 2000.

Besides, the Russian also was clearly the better player in the last such match when he beat Veselin Topalov.

Anand, on the other hand, has had some fine victories in the past but the big handicap that the Indian faces now is lack of big match practice in the recent past.

Anand and Kramnik have already inspected the playing venue. Both were not comfortable with their chairs, so they had to be replaced. Rest rooms were checked next.

The match consists of 12 games, played under classical time controls — 120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move, starting from move 61.

Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament

Vishwanathan Anand beat Kramnik in the rapid game in the first round of Amber Blindfold and Rapid Chess Tournament being held in Nice, France. After drawing with Vladimir Kramnik in the opening blindfold game, world champion Viswanathan Anand [ defeated the Russian in their rapid match in the first round of the Amber Blindfold and Rapid chess tournament in Nice, France [

Anand emerged as a joint leader in the rapid and combined standings after beating Kramnik.

In the rapid, the Indian is joined by Armenia’s Levon Aronian while in the combined standings it is a five-way lead between, Anand, Aronian, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Ukrainians Vassily Ivanchuk and Sergey Karjakin.

It was in the return game that the Indian ace proved superior to Kramnik after the latter slipped from a position of strength.

It was a Queen’s Indian defense where Anand played black and Kramnik looked in control when the middle game commenced.

The Indian ace had to find counteractive measures on the king side amidst wild complexities when Kramnik missed the thread of the position and found his king in a checkmate web.

It was a picturesque finish as Anand sacrificed his queen to force matters. The game lasted 43 moves.

Earlier, playing the white side of a Petroff defense in the first game of the tournament, Anand followed the variation he had played against Kramnik some time back but the Russian, who is also the defending champion here, was adequately prepared and drew without much ado.

The event is being played on a round-robin basis between 12 players. Each players plays against the other twice in blindfold and then in rapid and the combined score is taken to decide the winner