Pierre Barthélémy, a respected chess writer for the newspaper Le Monde in Paris since 1993 just sent me a note.

He stated that he is not so sure that Kramnik has agreed to play in Mexico City as announced by President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on ChessPro.ru yesterday!!

In an e-mail message dated Tuesday, December 12th, Kramnik’s manager, Carsten Hensel, has told me that “there will be several conversations with FIDE during the next weeks to come”.

So, nothing is final on this subject as negotiation will continue between FIDE and the Kramnik team. Pierre wrote an article about this on his blog.

I suspect that Kramnik will play in Mexico City in 2007 but his team will try to get every possible favorable condition from President Ilyumzhinov and FIDE before finalizing the deal. The question now is which side will blink first? After all, Kramnik did sign a contract regarding Mexico City before his unification match with Topalov. And the drama continues…

Our friends from France have always been very helpful with the news! Thank you Pierre for this update!
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Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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