"Chess Clash" heating up as FM Harper holds slim lead!

In the first week of the 1st "Chess Clash," FMs Warren Elliott and Ryan Harper were both brimming with confidence as the battle was finally launched on the 13th of October. This battle is intriguing because the skills of both players are on display as each brings a different style of commentary to the selected game. Both demonstrated their prowess in annotating the theoretical Anand-Ponomariov game #4 of the 2002 Mainz match. The votes began to roll in as FM Harper jumped out to a huge lead. Elliott quickly closed the gap by winning 11 votes in a row to pull within a mere 10 percentage points!

So far votes have come from places as diverse as Belgium Canada, Australia, Nigeria, England, Wales and of course the U.S., Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The voting hopes to increase during the Chess Olympiad as players from around the world will be encouraged to participate. The current score has FM Harper ahead winning 52.73% to FM Elliott's  47.27%. Voting ends on the 13th of November.

Posted by The Chess Drum: 18 October 2002