People in glass houses…
By Malcolm Pein
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 02/09/2008
An outstanding festival of chess is prospect at the Grand Slam Final underway in the Basque City of Bilbao. Six of the world’s finest players, who qualified by virtue of their performances at the three events which made up the rest of the Grand Slam will fight for a prize fund of 400,000 Euros.
The qualifying events were Corus Wijk aan Zee, Linares and MTel Sofia. All six are ranked in the world’s top dozen with the field headed by the world champion Vishy Anand for whom this is the last competitive outing before he defends his title against Vladimir Kramnik.
The most innovative feature of the event is that it will take place in the street but that does not mean the spectators will be allowed to kibitz and there is no risk of rain stopping play as a large glass playing hall complete with areas for commentators and spectators has been constructed in the Plaza Nueva, in the centre of Bilbao’s Old Town.
To encourage fighting chess, players will score three points for a win and one for a draw. In addition the ‘Sofia Rules’ which forbid draw offers will be in force.
The main event and the numerous side tournaments and exhibitions are being supported by the City of Bilbao the Basque Government, BBK Bank and Euskaltel.
The full line up is:
Viswanathan Anand
Magnus Carlsen
Vasily Ivanchuk
Veselin Topalov
Teimour Radjabov
and Levon Aronian
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Carlsen will win by 2 points! I bet $1 on this.
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okay