Players start arriving

By Arvind Aaron

SHENYANG, AUG. 29. There is lot of enthusiasm in Shenyang over the FIDE World Cup for chess starting here on Thursday as players have started to arrive. It is FIDE's first major event this millennium and 48 of the top stars will be in action in the men and women sections.

The 24-player tournament has a duo format, first a round robin of six players in four groups and then a knock-out for the two qualifiers from the four groups. Thus barring tie- breaks, the winner will play a minimum of eleven games. ``They borrowed it from Euro 2000 football,'' some players said about the format.

GMs Viswanathan Anand and FIDE Champion Alexander Khalifman arrived by noon on Tuesday. GM Gilberto Milos from Brazil arrived travelling via Johannesburg, Hong Kong and Beijing rather than take a flight over the Pacific.

Among the women, former world champion Maya Chiburdanidze from Georgia and upcoming star Natalia Zhukova of Ukraine have arrived.

The 13-day chess event with two extra days for arriving and departure should offer visiting chess players far better opportunities to explore China and its culture. The Chinese chess players are certainly going to make the things worse for the visitors at the chess board from Friday.

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