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Chess: Anand starts favourite

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  • Chess: Anand starts favourite

    Times of India, India
    July 21 2004

    Anand starts favourite

    PTI[ WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2004 07:41:58 PM ]

    DORTMUND: World Rapid champion and World number two Viswanathan Anand
    would start as hot favourite in the Dortmund Sparkassen chess
    tournament that begins with a new format here on Thursday.


    The Indian stalwart comes back to competitive chess after nearly a
    months rest. Earlier in June Anand had led the World team to victory
    over Armenia in a match organised in Moscow to mark the 75th Birth
    Anniversary of late Armenian world champion Tigran Petrosian.

    This time the Dortmund saga changes in a big way as the format of the
    event has been changed completely.

    Till 2003 it used to be a 10-player round robin tournament. But this
    time around, the organisers have found a unique way of holding the
    preliminaries, semi-finals, classification matches and the finals.

    As a result of this apparently fine shift - expected to give more
    decisive and hard-fought games - the players have been divided into
    two groups of four.


    Anand heads his group along side Grandmasters Peter Svidler of
    Russia, his compatriot and 2004 Aeroflot open champion Sergei
    Rublevski and local talent GM Arkadij Naiditsch.

    Briangames champion Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, also
    second seeded, leads the other group.

    Kramnik is expected to face a stiff challenge from GMs Peter Leko of
    Hungary, defending champion Viktor Bologan of Moldova and youngest
    ever Grandmaster Sergei Karjakin of Ukraine.
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