Chess fans from five Continents are to concentrate on the event taking place in Miskolc on 2-7 June 2009. The year’s most prestigious clash in Hungary is being organized at the National Theater of Miskolc. The No. 1 Hungarian GM, Peter Leko takes up a duel of eight games against the Indian world champion, Viswanathan Anand. The arbiter of the Match will be Zsuzsa Veroci, WGM, Head of Communication of the Hungarian Chess Federation.

Miskolc is the third biggest city in Hungary; the inhabitants are fond of culture and sports very much here. In the last few years, great athletes from Europe and all over the world have met here and tried a fall with each other for example in ice-hockey, handball, basketball, karate, boxing, speedway etc. Two of our frequented events have become traditional, namely the Bartók+ International Opera Festival in summer and the more and more popular Kocsonya Festival in wintertime. Chess has long-standing traditions in Miskolc; the City has produced multiple-winning teams in national championships, as well as a number of noted players on the international scene. Miskolc is a first city in Hungary where Peter Leko launched his first chess school.

As the first stage of the Lékó… series Peter Leko played against Michael Adams in 2005. The exciting duel ended in a tie 4-4.

Three years ago Leko’s opponent was the twelfth world champion of chess, AnatolyKarpov, in the new shrine of chess, The fans both on the spot selling out the National Theater of unique beauty and those via internet were amazed by the games – with good reason. Lékó took the lead by winning the third game and could preserve his advantage till the end gaining a victory of 4,5-3,5.

Two years ago, in the pursuance of the series our GM’s opponent and the special guest of Miskolc was the Russian World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik deprived his compatriot, Garri Kasparov of the world champion title in 2000 and could defend it exactly against Péter Lékó through a tie of 7-7 in Brissago, Switzerland, in 2004. In the autumn of 2006, he won the world championship final for uniting titles against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in the tie-break. Their duel of eight games in Miskolc could be considered as the return match for Brissago. We had the possibility to follow a brilliant duel between the two GMs and, furthermore, the homepage of the game – www.lekokramnyik.hu – was visited by more than three and half million users. Kramnik won the third and fifth games, Leko could nevertheless close up in the sixth, however, the Russian GM won the duel by 4,5-3,5.

After the great champions, Péter Leko was facing the pretender, Magnus Carlson last year. Similar to Leko but in ten years’ time, the Norwegian Wunderkind, who is also known as Mozart of the Chess, was the youngest GM in the world. At the age of fifteen he became world champion candidate and in the last year’s World Cup finished third. In the first super event of the year, in Wijk aan Zee, he fascinated the chess world with his dead-heat first place. Afterwards, he repeated his success in Linares by finishing second being left behind exclusively by Viswanathan Anand.

Before the duel of Miskolc, Magnus has been without any triumphs against Peter. In course of the Match Magnus, who seem quite faint-hearted at the beginning, just kept his wits about in the difficult moments, in expediencies of time pressure and beside two draws he secured two wins and finally prevailed.

One could hardly wait for the fifth, anniversary duel. The 15th world champions of chess, the 39 year-old Viswanathan Anand can be seen by the Hungarian chess fans „live” for the first time in his career. In 1987, he became youth world champion, in 1988 International Grandmaster. In 1995 he played PCA World Championship Final against Garri Kasparov, but was defeated by 10,5-7,5. In 1998 he encountered for the World Champion title against Anatoly Karpov but after 3-3, however he lost in the rapid play-off. In 2000, he overcame Aleksei Shirov with a supercilious performance of 3,5-0,5 in the FIDE World Championship Final. In 2007, in the World Championship in Mexico he remained unbeaten during the whole tournament of two rounds and vanquished the World Champion title from Vladimir Kramnik. As enthronement of his brilliant career, he defended his title against Kramnik in Bonn with a triumph of 6,5-4,5.

The chess player of the year title has been awarded him five times. Among his great number of triumphs, five first places in Wijk aan Zee and three victories in Linares must be emphasized. Vishy is confessedly the best in rapid chess.

Among others he prevailed five times at the Amber-tournament and won eight times in the arena of Mainz.

Peter Leko and Viswanathan Anand played against each other for the first time in a blitz game in 1994 and, since then, they tried a fall in 72 games.

They played classical, rapid, blind and blitz games, respectively. Anand is on the lead by 21-7 beside 45 draws. In rapid games the Indian world champion won seven times, lost three times and ten games were draws.

According to the ranking list of 1 April 2009, Anand is ranked 2nd with 2783 ELO-points, while Leko occupies the ninth place with 2751 points.

The parties will have 25 minutes each as time for thinking with a bonus of 10 seconds per moves. Inasmuch as the duel of eight games ends up in a 4-4 draw blitz games are to decide.

Official website: http://www.lekoanand.hu/eng/

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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