World Chess Championship starts on Tuesday!

RoundTower

The World Chess Championship will be played from Tuesday, October 14th to November 2 in Bonn, Germany. Reigning champion Viswanathan "Vishy" Anand will be defending the title against his predecessor, Vladimir Kramnik.

There have only been 15 World Champions since the first match in 1886, so this match is quite a big deal in the chess world. Anand is a small favourite to win.

There will be lots of spots to follow this live around the internet. If you are interested I suggest you start at Chessbase or at the official site. Chessbase is the biggest chess software company and usually carries good news on ongoing tournaments. However I'm not sure which if either site will show the games live for free. There will certainly be other sites where you can follow the games live. Post them in this thread if you find good ones, I will also keep the thread updated.

Burial

I hope Anand wins and tbh, I think Carlsen should really be contending for the World Championship Title.

cavedave

Burial I hope Anand wins and tbh,

Why?

I think Carlsen should really be contending for the World Championship Title.

He does seem to be the best player in the world at the moment. Any word on if he is seconding Anand?

RoundTower

Burial wrote: »

I think Carlsen should really be contending for the World Championship Title.

well there has to be some qualifying process, the match can't just be the defending champion vs whatever young guy is really good and a public favourite. Carlsen could never have qualified for 2008 (it's a special rematch) and he didn't qualify for 2009.

If FIDE get it right with their current qualifying system, Carlsen has an excellent chance to qualify for 2011 (he's won 1/1 qualifying tournament, but there will be 3 more). Unfortunately FIDE don't seem to be able to please everybody and several top players have refused to play these events, including Anand and Kramnik.

Burial

Actually Carlsen would've been able to play it had they rated one tournament a few days earlier. I don't think a young guy whos a public favourite should play in it, but he was on the up and whose rating should've been world number 2/3. I personally think the World Championship should be defending, World number 1/2 and a wild card choice play off in a league type structure. Certainly spice things up a bit, but I highly doubt anyone would agree to it.

@Cavedave: I want Anand to win because I like him more personally. Thats really it. According to the Live rankings a few weeks back Carlsen was the unoffical world number one.

Jam-Fly

Topalov and Carlsen would be the best match for the World Championships imo.

I hope Anand spend 3hrs a game in the toilet just to see how Kramnik reacts

cavedave

@Cavedave: I want Anand to win because I like him more personally. Thats really it. According to the Live rankings a few weeks back Carlsen was the unoffical world number one.

Yeah I know what you mean. There is also the point that an Indian champion might improve the popularity of the game worldwide. How about playing styles. Whose do people prefer?

Jam-Fly

cavedave wrote: »

Yeah I know what you mean. There is also the point that an Indian champion might improve the popularity of the game worldwide. How about playing styles. Whose do people prefer?

with regards to playing styles Anand is far and away the winner there. Waaaaaay more interesting than Kramnik.