PoPChess

The Chess Tigers Mainz Classic is underway with its incredible set of large and powerful events. Most eyes are on the self-proclaimed GrenkeLeasing world rapid championship, though I liked the old straight-up match play instead of this two-stage process. World Champion Vishy Anand is there yet again to play king of the hill. Trying to knock him off and prevent his 10th consecutive and 12th win overall are Aronian, Nepomniachtchi, and Naiditsch. Anand has won every event but one since he first participated in 1997. (In 1999, the “past and future champion” edition with Anand, Kramnik, Kasparov, and Karpov in a quadruple round-robin, Garry took it.) Twice Kramnik took Anand to blitz tiebreaks before going down. The most sensational match was surely that against Judit Polgar in 2003: eight games, all decisive, with Anand trailing after five only to win the last three in a row. Over the years, in various formats, Anand has also knocked off Kasparov, Karpov, Aronian, Radjabov, Carlsen, Shirov, Grischuk, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Ponomariov, and, well, Eric Lobron. I think Morozevich is 0/4 against Anand in these events.

In sum, Vishy is the favorite in Mainz until his wheelchair rusts. Aronian got some consolation revenge by beating Anand in the “Chess960″ shuffle chess final last year and the Armenian is also back to defend his title. The opening ceremonies are over and group play in the two premier events begins tomorrow. The two massive opens, Ordix rapid and FiNet chess960, don’t start for a few more days and are back-to-back so players can participate in both. There’s even a prize for best combined score. Nakamura won the FiNet last year and so will challenge Aronian for the chess960 title, along with Bologan and Movsesian.

The all-important page of links to the live broadcasts is here. PLEASE update html results and PGN somewhere promptly, Tigers! It’s always a struggle to find out what happened because the new live games replace the old ones and we spend half the day asking around if anyone saw the results of round x. Danke!