Times of India, India
July 21 2004

Anand starts favourite

PTI[ WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 2004 07:41:58 PM ]

DORTMUND: World Rapid champion and World number two Viswanathan Anand
would start as hot favourite in the Dortmund Sparkassen chess
tournament that begins with a new format here on Thursday.

The Indian stalwart comes back to competitive chess after nearly a
months rest. Earlier in June Anand had led the World team to victory
over Armenia in a match organised in Moscow to mark the 75th Birth
Anniversary of late Armenian world champion Tigran Petrosian.

This time the Dortmund saga changes in a big way as the format of the
event has been changed completely.

Till 2003 it used to be a 10-player round robin tournament. But this
time around, the organisers have found a unique way of holding the
preliminaries, semi-finals, classification matches and the finals.

As a result of this apparently fine shift – expected to give more
decisive and hard-fought games – the players have been divided into
two groups of four.

Anand heads his group along side Grandmasters Peter Svidler of
Russia, his compatriot and 2004 Aeroflot open champion Sergei
Rublevski and local talent GM Arkadij Naiditsch.

Briangames champion Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, also
second seeded, leads the other group.

Kramnik is expected to face a stiff challenge from GMs Peter Leko of
Hungary, defending champion Viktor Bologan of Moldova and youngest
ever Grandmaster Sergei Karjakin of Ukraine.