AICF-AAI Cup

Negi to meet Wojtaszek in AICF-AAI Cup 
Press Trust of India / New Delhi 
December 20, 2012, 19:15

Grandmaster and Asian champion Parimarjan Negi will start his campaign against Radoslav Wojtaszek of Poland in the first round of the AICF-AAI Chess Cup that got underway here with a glittering opening ceremony.

For the first time in the Indian chess history, the tournament will cross the category-18 barrier according to ELO charts making it the highest category event ever held in the country.

A joint venture of the All India Chess Federation and Airports Authority of India, the six-player double round-robin format tournament will see three Indian stars in action.

Former national champion GM K Sasikiran will spearhead the Indian challenge along with 2008 World Champion GM Abhijeet Gupta and world’s second youngest Grandmaster Negi.

The Rs 12 lakh prize-money strongest-ever chess tournament in the country will see Wojtaszek looking to add valuable rating points to his tally. Leading the charge of challengers against him would be GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine, who boasts of a 2700+ rating and Russia’s in-form player GM Evgeny Alekseev.

The participants, with an average rating of over 2675 ELO rating points, will play each other twice — once with white pieces and once with black.

The winner will take home the purse of Rs 4 lakh.

In the opener, Sasikiran will meet compatriot Gupta while in the other pairing of the day, former Russian champion Evgeny Alekseev will take on current Ukrainian champion Korobov.

In the championship, the time control will be Classical with 100 minutes for the first forty moves to be followed by 50 minutes for the next 20 and a 15-minute sudden death rule to follow thereafter.

Right from move one, there will be a 30 second increment after every move till the end of the game.

The players will not be allowed to offer draws and this can be done only with the intervention of the arbiter.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com