Second game opens with the Slav Defense, but Kramnik favors the Catalan opening…
I have never followed chess as a sport. Never studied the game and learned strategies other than the basic moves. So it is kind of hard to get to riled up about the World Championships Just curious though, do men compete against women? How do you find out who the top players from each country?
I did have a good friend from High School who was really into chess, and I always expect that he would have competed at a high level. He was always reading a book on chess strategy. Perfect score on the SAT, and scholarship to MIT. I lost track of him after high school.
Basically you compete in several tiers of tournaments before you can qualify for grandmaster status, anyone can compete in any tournament they qualify for, chess ratings are used to arrange your opponents, and nationality isn’t really a factor.
This is what makes this championship unique:
[I]Chess to Unify Championship, in Elista. Where? In Elista.
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN
Published: September 23, 2006
A schism in the chess world that opened in 1993 in London will be healed by next month in a poor and barren Russian republic on the Caspian Sea.
Thirteen years ago, Garry Kasparov, the undisputed world chess champion, broke with the World Chess Federation, the governing body of the game, over how the federation was organizing a match for the title. Mr. Kasparov and his challenger, Nigel Short, an English grandmaster, staged their own match in London, which Mr. Kasparov won.
In retaliation, the federation declared that Mr. Kasparov was no longer champion and organized a match between Anatoly Karpov, Mr. Kasparov’s predecessor, and Jan Timman, a Dutch grandmaster. Mr. Karpov won and the federation proclaimed him champion.
Since then, there have been rival claims to the title of world champion. But now, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of the World Chess Federation — who is also president of Kalmykia, a region in southern Russia next to Kazakhstan — has brokered a deal and arranged a match to settle the issue. It will be in Elista, the republic’s capital, beginning today and will continue into October.
Veselin Topalov, 31, a Bulgarian grandmaster who is the top-ranked player in the world, will play a 12-game match against Vladimir Kramnik, a Russian grandmaster who is also 31 and is ranked No. 4.
The players will divide $1 million, but the winner will go away with something arguably as valuable: He will be the true world champion.
Mr. Topalov is the federation’s champion by virtue of having won a world championship tournament in Argentina last year. He plays aggressively and uncompromisingly, much like Mr. Kasparov did before he retired last year. Mr. Kramnik bases his claim to the title on having beaten Mr. Kasparov in a match in 2000. His style of play has been described as minimalist, much like Mr. Karpov in his prime[/I].
I was the class checker champion in 6th grade.