80-year-old former Spanish chess champ draws with Anand
Hello Everybody!
We might not need to wait for London Classic (December, 2010) to see a match between the World Champion and the world's No. 1 rated chess player.
But that is not the news right now!
The presentation of the Final Masters was attended by the World Champion Viswanathan Anand. He played a simul against eminent citizens of the region including President of the Bizkaia Basketball Federation Jon X. Davalillo, the Euskatel team member Koldo Fernández de Larrea, the TV presenter Adela González, and the Euskadi chess champions Alejandro Franco and Isabel Menoyo. Anand made 23.5 over 24 boards drawing only with José Ramón Arrupe - an 80-year-old chess player.
Incidentally, Arrupe was the Spanish chess champion four times in the 1950s and has draws twice against Anatoly Karpov and once against Ponomariov!
Earlier, Bilbao Mayor Iñaki Azkuna has announced the Final Chess Masters 2010 schedule and format. The tournament would include a qualification tournament in Shanghai with Hao Wang, Alexey Shirov, Levon Aronian, and Vladimir Kramnik. Two players from this event would qualify for the final in Bilbao to take on world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen and the World Champion Viswanathan Anand.
The tournament might turn out be the strongest ever with four of the top 5 players in the final! Veselin Topalov is not playing because of personal reasons.
The 2010 Final Masters will be played according to the Sofia rules (draws can be offered only through arbiters) and the Bilbao system (3 points for a win, 1 for draw, and 0 for loss).
From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
Also see her personal blog at
Labels: bilbao, jose ramon arrupe, shanghai, Viswanathan Anand
posted by Chess Blog Admin @ 9:28 AM
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