As everyone in the chess fraternity knows, a rather important match is going to be held at Bonn in October - November of this year. I can be hardly called an unbiased neutral, but since this is my first world championship match - There was no coverage of the 2006 match in India - I am understandably excited.  So splash your thoughts on anything and everything on the match - predictions, latest news, rumours, training regimens, telecast times, et c.

A little background to start with...

Head to Head

Anand	Draws	Kramnik
Anand (White) – Kramnik (Black)	2	19	0
Kramnik (White) – Anand (Black)	2	22	6
Total	4	41	6

This along with the fact that Anand is five years older than Kramnik seem to suggest that the latter holds the edge, but current form, talent and the championship advantage is with Anand. As recent results have shown there probably won't be a clear winner. Who is going to win???

I hope Anand, but I think Kramnik will prevail.

Unless P.H. Nielsen and Vishy will come up with very strong improvements in both the catalan and the petroff, i think Kramnik will hold with black and push with white.

Kramnik's greatest strength is drawing at will. Anand's greatest weakness is losing drawable games. That could make all the difference.

 We don't have to wait long to see their next encounter :-)

I just saw the pairings for the Melody Amber tournament.

This afternoon we have Anand-Kramnik blind and Kramnik-Anand rapid. 

 

In another forum I said there that Anand will win.  I guess he's more likable than Kramnik. 

the winner of this game will face the winner of Topalov vs Kamsky.Personally i believe Topalov will get back his title.

Who, other than me, believes Topalov was shortchanged? Despite being the FIDE Champion, he was not given the Championship Advantage (Winning the title in case of a tie). Understandable, considering it was a reunification match. Then he wasn't invited to Mexico for the title match. Stupid.

Fortunately he gets a chance albeit delayed. Being a United Statesian I'm rooting for Kamsky.

ajachi wrote:

Who, other than me, believes Topalov was shortchanged? Despite being the FIDE Champion, he was not given the Championship Advantage (Winning the title in case of a tie). Understandable, considering it was a reunification match. Then he wasn't invited to Mexico for the title match. Stupid.

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Apparently , Kramnik and Topalov both agreed in he contract of their match that the loser would NOT take part in Mexico. I dont understand why they would do this but thats what I understand happened and is why Topalov didnt play Mexico. I also dont understand why they use rapid games to break the tie for a classical chess match? Why not play sudden death, where they play classicl games until the first win and the winner takes the match? In the playoff they can draw lots again to see who gets white in the first game.

 Topalov and Kramnik are not in good relationships,I am fan of Anand but I would like to see game between Topalov and Kramnik,their games are always very exciting and "bloody"

ANAND IS THE BEST.

Topalov is not a very consistent player and often blunders.But i think it s recognised by many as the most spectacular player of nowadays, in good shape he can pull out amazing wins.

i think kramnik will prevail at this maTCH

Today is the day boys and girls!

Kramnik has white, can he draw first blood??

We await with baited breath!

This match should be very interesting. Why is Leko in Kramnik's camp and does this mean Kramnik might play the marshall against Anand's spanish? Leko is a specialist in the marshall I believe. Or, will Kramnik stick to the petroff and/or the berlin efense? Surely Anand has prepared for these ? And how will Anand fight to draw as black against the catalan ? Did he get any help/ideas from Carlsen perhaps? The opening choices are gonna be interesting indeed.

I hear that the online trasmission will be delayed by half an hour to encourage people to pay 10 euro for the "premium transmission" with all the fancy cameras.

I believe Playchess will cover the games live, with no delay.....I will check later to see as I have a membership there.

There is some very good analysis of each game between Anand and Kramnik at

http://www.uep-worldchess.com/  just click on grandmaster analysis on the left column

If anyone cares, I'm back on Chess.com after 6 months. scut_fargus, I'm watching it on uep, but there's no grandmaster analysis. The exact address is http://87.230.38.130/apache2-default/toma/tfd_neu.htm. I got here from the UEP site by choosing game viewer 1. What am I doing wrong?

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It's just what it is - live relay of games - no analysis, so you are not doing anything wrong. There is GM analysis on  http://www.uep-worldchess.com/ under "Analysis Grandmaster" option but not for games in progess, just finished games...