Anand to face Gelfand

By Arvind Aaron

HAIFA (ISRAEL), FEB. 3. Top seed Viswanathan Anand will face Boris Gelfand of Israel with black pieces in the opening game of the second Wydra international chess tournament starting here at the Haifa International Convention Centre late on Thursday evening.

The pairing and colours do no matter since it is a double round robin tournament for eight players. Three rounds will be played on Thursday, six on Friday and five on Saturday. The closing ceremony will also be held on Saturday. The prizes for the top four are: $5000, $3500, $2500, $1500, etc.

Tournament favourite and defending champion Viswanathan Anand said, ``the field is tougher than last time, still I hope to do well.'' He has `almost' recovered from the bout of `flu' which affected him during the penultimate round of the Corus chess tournament last month.

Players are also paid starting money and besides the super category rapid event, there is an open tournament with seven rounds and also a rapid event.

Haifa has a good track record of big chess events. It was the venue of the 1976 chess Olympiad, the European Team Championship among other important chess events.

Israel with more than 35 grandmasters has the third highest number of grandmasters after Russia and United States. ``Our grandmaster to population ratio is the highest in the world,'' claimed Boris Gelfand who moved from Minsk in Belarus to near Tel Aviv last year.

Most of the GMs are those who migrated from the former Soviet Union. ``It is an easy way to get GMs, isn't it?'' asked organiser Mr. Shimon Ziv.

Israel, they say here, provides a good future for chess players. The top 10 are paid a monthly stipend of over $500 by the Government. Its best is paid $2,500 for the European Championship and more for the Olympiad.

In contrast players in Russia and United States have a stormy atmosphere. Chess in Russia is in chaos with its Federation unable to pay members of the 1998 gold medal winning team $10,000 dollars each as was promised. Top players are boycotting official team events there.

In United States its annual championship had to be cancelled and top players are complaining as an income opportunity being lost.

lThe draw numbers: 1 Boris Gelfand (Isr), 2 Boris Avrukh (Isr), 3 Alon Greenfeld (Isr), 4 Alexander Huzman (Isr), 5 Peter Svidler (Rus), 6 Lev Psakhis (Isr), 7 Evgeny Bareev (Rus), 8 Viswanathan Anand (Ind).

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Sport
Previous : A memorable gift for Pooja
Next     : Australians bank on Brett Lee phenomenon