Anand begins defence with white

By Arvind Aaron

MOSCOW, NOV. 26. The FIDE World Chess Championship was officially inaugurated at the State Kremlin Palace on Sunday evening after a grand and colourful ceremony.

The defending men's champion and top seed, Viswanathan Anand of India will play white in the opening game of Round One on Tuesday and Alisa Galliamova of Russia, the favourite in the women's championship, plays black.

The men's event has 128 players and the women's section 64, with matches being held on a two-game knock-out basis. The men's event will decide the finalists on December 14, the last date and the finals will be held here in Moscow from January 16-26.

The entire women's championship will be held here and a new winner is already certain with Xie Jun not making it here.

Indian pairings (round one, game one):

Men: V. Anand v Olivier Touzane (Fra), Surya Sekhar Ganguly (Ind) v Alexander Khalifman (Rus), Joel Lautier (Fra) v Dibyendu Barua (Ind), Pendyala Harikrishna (Ind) v Alexander Beliavsky (Slv), Krishnan Sasikiran (Ind) v Vereslav Eingorn (Ukr).

Women: Antoaneta Stefanova (Bul) v Pallavi Shah (Ind), Nisha Mohota (Ind) v Tatiana Stepovaia (Rus), Nino Khurtsidze (Geo) v Aarthie Ramaswamy (Ind), S.Vijayalakshmi (Ind) v Joanna Dworakowska (Pol).

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