Anand favoured for world chess title

Grandmaster Vishwanathan Anand finds himself installed as hot favourite for the World Chess Championships, to be held under the new format in December this year.

The championships are scheduled to be hosted by International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch at Lausanne, in Switzerland.

Reigning champions Garry Kasparov's refusal to participate in the championship under the new format is being viewed by experts as indicative of a loss of confidence following his defeat at the hands of chess computer Deeper Blue recently. The match up of man and machine was a short, crisp affair, and Kasparov is traditionally uncomfortable in short matches, preferring the longer wars of attrition.

Anand and Kramnik are seeded directly into the second round of the tournament, which will be played over knockout ties of two games apiece till the semifinal stage. In the semis, the match will be over four games, and the final will be contested over six games. In case of ties, rapid games of 25 minutes duration will be played to decide the winner.

It is this last factor - the speed tie-breaker - that experts believe gives Anand the edge. Recently, the Indian Blitz Kid defeated six computers in a simultaneous rapid chess display at the Hague. Interestingly, before the start of that contest, Kasparov had predicted that Anand stood no chance against the machines. Anand, however, not only won handily, but played faster than the computers.

Though the latest ELO ratings have Vladimir Kramnik five points ahead of Anand, his match play is not strong, according to British chess journalist Mark Crowther. Besides, Anand has the psychological advantage of having recently beaten Kramnik 2-0 at Monaco, before outplaying the other strong contender, former world champion Anatoly Karpov by 2.5-0.5 in rapid games.

The world chess championship will carry a prize fund of US $5 million, the champion getting $1.5 million. Even a first round loser stands to go home richer by $6,000.