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It is time for the World Chess Championship! The players arrived at the beautiful coastal town of Sochi a few days ago. They are now eagerly waiting for the match to begin. Nothing much has been made public about Magnus Carlsen’s arrival or his team’s inspection of the playing venue. Viswanathan Anand, on the other hand, looks relaxed and was on a tweeting binge, posting pictures and comments, underlining the fact that he loves playing in Russia.
Here are some of his interesting tweets, giving the fans an insider view into the World Chess Championship at the same time giving the official website’s webmasters and journalists a rest it would seem:
I wonder what kind of music Magnus will be facing this time, given the fact that Magnus Carlsen openly supported the losing FIDE presidential candidate Garry Kasparov, and is now in the FIDE President, Kirsan’s lair, things may get tough for him if the match takes a political turn. Below is one of Garry Kasparov’s rants, warning about the possibility of ugly events surfacing in the Championship.
Speaking of meddling, it seems like FIDE has meddled too much with the Logo. The logo looks eerie and has one too many eyes, nonetheless I’m pretty sure there will be many more eyes glued to the world chess championship this time since it will be held in Russia – the chess paradise!
The Pre-match conference and the Opening ceremony was held on the 7th which was presided by the FIDE President - Kirsan Illyumzhinov, FIDE vice-president and the president of the Russian Chess Federation - Andrey Filatov, Former World Champion - Anatoly Karpov, and the head of Agon – Ilya Merenzon. Former World Champion Boris Spassky was present in the milieu, on a wheel-chair and looked frail.
The first question put forth to the players, was something all the fans were eagerly waiting to know, about their seconds, and both Anand and Carlsen didn’t shy away from revealing their seconds:
Team Anand: Krishnan Sasikiran, Grzegorz Gajewski and Rados?aw Wojtaszek
Team Magnus: Jon Ludvig Hammer and Peter Heine Nielsen (Anand’s former second.)
Magnus Carlsen drew black in the drawing of lots, hence Anand will be starting with the white pieces in game 1, starting 5:30 PM IST on the 8th of November, Saturday.It will be interesting to see what Anand’s team have prepared for the match from the white side, will it be 1.e4 or 1.d4 from Anand is the big question. Queen pawn opening is more likely since he looked in trouble starting with 1.e4 in the previous world championship as he was unable to come up with any innovative ideas against Magnus’ Berlin Defense.
The match will be played in the Olympic Media Center auditorium and the tickets to watch the match in person are a touch expensive with the collections going to FIDE’s chess in schools project. FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov mentioned that there will be other events like lectures from Grand Masters and tournaments that will be held in parellel to the Championship.
You can watch the complete Press Conference below:
The Opening Ceremony:
