Mikhail Botvinnik Memorial

Mikhail Botvinnik Memorial
1-5th September in Moscow, Russia

Text courtesy of GM Elina Danielian

I am invited to take part in Botvinnik Memorial 2011, which will be held from 1-5 of September in Moscow. The tournament is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of World Champion and legendary Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (17 August 1911 - 5 May 1995).

The tournament will consist of a Men's and a Women's section. The participants of Men's section are Viswanthan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Levon Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik and in the Women's section the players are Koneru Humpy, Tatiana Kosintseva, Viktorija Cmilyte and myself.

The tournament will have two parts. The first part is a double round robin Rapid Competition (6 rounds), with a 25min + 10sec time control and the second is a simultaneous exhibition of the players where each will play on 10 boards.

The very interesting and unusual part of the rapid tournament is that during the game, both opponents will give some commentary on the position on the board, while the other opponent will be sitting, with earphone and music, in order not to intercept the opponent's comments.

I'm looking forward to taking part in such an honorary tournament.

After the rapid tournament, we will have another very interesting challenge. Men and women will make pairs. The team will be composed from players by country and in one case region and we will play Combine Rapid Chess, which means in my case I will play a move and then Levon Aronian will play a move and so on.

The teams will be: Aronian/Danielian; Carlsen/Cmilyte; Anand/Koneru; Kramnik/T.Kosintseva.

World Championship in Moscow?

World Chess Championship 2012 in Moscow?
Moscow sent a bid for the Anand - Gelfand 2012 match (updated)

As Chessdom informed a few weeks ago, there are no official bids, but there is certainly interest in organizing the World Chess Championship 2012 after the large media success of the 2010 edition of the event. The match Anand - Gelfand is rumored to be wanted by India and several other countries, but the first one to make a move is Russia.

Moscow will send a bid for the World Chess Championship match 2012 between Anand and Gelfand. This news came via the Russian Chess Federation, cited by Moskovski Novosti, and the rumor quickly spred through the local media. The last world championships organized in Moscow were the 1985 match between Kasparov and Karpov, and the 2002 knockout World Championship won by Ponomariov.

The information about Moscow has been confirmed by Ilya Levitov according to the Russian media. Berik Balgabaev countered, "Yes, indeed there is interest from Moscow, but who has submitted a bid I will tell when I have the right to. For now I can only say that the information did not come initially from us and I cannot confirm it, but let me note that there is high interest from India and Israel also."

The deadline for the Anand - Gelfand bids is 31 July 2011, and the full details on the bidding procedure are here

Update: Ilya Levitov confirmed that the bid to host the World Chess Championship 2012 in Moscow has been sent to FIDE. The offer is 2 million USD worth, matching the prize fund provided by the Bulgarian government for the match Anand-Topalov.

The newspaper "Kommersant" notes that the bid comes shortly after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev instructed the government and Russian Olympic Committee to continue on bringing the biggest sports event to the country. A small reminder that the 2014 Winter Olympic Games will be held in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup will also take place in Russia.

According to Kommersant columnist Alexey Dospehov, the challenger Boris Gelfand welcomed the bid and added that Moscow "is probably the best option." On the question about possible bids from Israel, Gelfand said that there has been some interest but without concrete steps.

Several sources revealed that Andrey Filatov, co-owner of the "N-Trance" company and a devoted chess fan, is actually sponsoring the bid. Filatov is known for financing the restoration of Alexander Alekhine's monument in Paris.