2012 London Chess Classic
Despite last year’s accomplishment of fielding four 2800-rated players the London Chess Classic begins and will boast its strongest tournament ever in its 2012 edition. Magnus Carlsen will headline the field and be accompanied by Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik and World Champion, Viswanathan Anand. It gets better.
US Champion Hikaru Nakamura and Judit Polgar will present a challenge as both are uncompromising fighters. Also the strong trio from England in Michael Adams, Luke McShane and Gwaine Jones with defend home turf.
The average rating in 2751 making it the strongest British tournament in history. Each player will receive a bye during which they will provide commentary during the round. A novel approach which was been quite popular.
The tournament is a single round-robin with time controls of 40/2 then 15 minutes with 30-second increment. “Sofia Rules” are in effect and will include the scoring system of three points for a win and one point for a draw.
December 1-10, 2012 (London, England) |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
#
|
Name
|
Title
|
Federation
|
Flag
|
Rating
|
||
| 1 | Carlsen, Magnus | GM | Norway |
 |
2848 | ||
| 2 | Aronian, Levon | GM | Armenia |
 |
2815 | ||
| 3 | Kramnik, Vladimir | GM | Russia |
 |
2795 | ||
| 4 | Anand, Viswanathan | GM | India |
 |
2775 | ||
| 5 | Nakamura, Hikaru | GM | USA |
 |
2760 | ||
| 6 | McShane, Luke | GM | England |
 |
2710 | ||
| 7 | Adams, Michael | GM | England |
|
2710 | ||
| 8 | Polgar, Judit | GM | Hungary |
 |
2705 | ||
| 9 | Jones, Gawain | GM | England |
|
2644 | ||
It looks like Carlson is 3 points from tying Kasparov’s record elo!
Wishy Anand is no longer a true vegetarian:-( He started eating seafood many years ago. While in most of the world 1-3 percent of all residents are pure vegetarian (meaning no chicken or fish), in India the ratio is around 33 percent due to cultural and religious reasons. Jains and strict Brahmins have a particular affinity to vegetarianism.
Unfortunately, while vegetarianism and veganism in the western world are booming and very trendy (Bill Clinton, Mike Tyson, Ricky Williams and Tony Gonzalez come to mind as famous recent converts), in India the opposite is happening as more people become “westernized” and “trendy”. In another 30 years, India will think its trendy to be vegetarian when they see that the west is becoming much more vegetarian. Why do we have to copy THE west when it comes to trendiness?!?
Coming back to chess….Magnus has become a monster is the only chess related thought I have had in the past week.
Wow Daiim did not know you were vegan. I hated soy cheese the one time I tried it. I get a sense that Nigel Short often makes controversial points just to make the broadcast interesting and have people laugh. The usually gentlemanly Vishy made a rare controversial point himself yesterday when he mentioned “doing a Gary”! Audience loved it and I was surprised everyone knew what he was talking about.