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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

London Chess Classic 2012: Anand, Carlsen Confirm Participation

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand and World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen have confirmed their entry to the London Chess Classic 2012 beginning on December 1. Anand was the first to accept the invitation and Carlsen followed suit within a day.





The 4th London Chess Classic will be held at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012. Anand has said London is one of his favourite cities and this will be his third successive appearance in the tournament. For well over a decade now, Anand has been among the world’s top five players, and the first Indian to earn the grandmaster title. He played in his first World Championship match back in 1995 in New York, losing to Garry Kasparov. In May, he beat challenger Boris Gelfand in Moscow to clinch his fifth world championship title. He has also won the Chess Oscar (Player of the Year award) 6 times.

Magnus Carlsen recently topped the Fide July rating list with a personal best of 2837, just 14-points off of the all-time 2851 record set by Garry Kasparov - and the young Norwegian World No 1 could be on-course to break that record in London, as he now joins World Champion Vishy Anand in being the second player to sign-up for the 4th London Chess Classic, at Kensington Olympia, 1-10 December, 2012.

Carlsen, described as “The Mozart of Chess”, is one of the true superstars of the game, and this will be his fourth consecutive appearance at the London Chess Classic. Since January 2010, Carlsen has held onto the rating top spot 13 times, and is the current two-time winner of the Chess Oscar (Player of the Year award). Next year, he will also be bidding to win the Candidates tournament in London, in order to set-up a world title match-up with Anand.

And he’s just as big a star off the board as he is on it. A lucrative advertising campaign in 2010 with Dutch clothing label, G-Star Raw, has also seen Carlsen stake a claim to being the first Grandmaster supermodel, appearing alongside actress Gemma Arterton on billboards around the world. Earlier this year, Carlsen also appeared on major US TV networks, such as CBS’s flagship current affairs show, “60 minutes”, and Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report”.

Invitations have also been sent to Kramnik, Nakamura, Aronian, Judit, Adams, McShane and Jones. Read our earlier Chess Blog post:

4th London Chess Classic Invitations Sent to Top Players


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