Aiming to reclaim top spot

Photo by Fred Lucas

Anand looks to reclaim top spot
15/01/2011 4:32 PM
Sportal India -->

Viswanathan Anand will open his Tata Steel chess tournament campaign in Wijk Aan Zee in the Netherlands against Ukraine's Ruslan Ponomariov.

The draw seems to be a favourable one for the Indian even though he will have play seven games with black and six with white in the tournament which is played on a round-robin system among 14 players.

As usual, Anand is one of the hot favourites to win the tournament and he will consider himself lucky he will have the advantage of playing with white against other title contenders like Vladimir Kramnik and Alexander Grishchuk of Russian and Levon Aronian of Armenia.

The only disadvantage with the draw is Anand will have his work cut out playing with black against World No 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

Apart from Anand, Carlsen, Kramnik and Aronian, Bulgarian Veselin Topalov is also a title-contender with Grishchuk and Spaniard Alexei as the outside bets.

If Anand can finish better than Carlsen and Aronian, he will reclaim to the No 1 stop from Carlsen.

Another India, GM Suryasekhar Ganguly will also be making his maiden appearance in the tournament in Group B.

The India will have a tough job of finishing in the top three against a strong field which sees him seeded ninth.

India GM Tania Sachdev will also make her debut in the tournament and will be in Group C.

Source: http://www.sportal.co.in