Anand looking to extend winning run

World champion Vishwanathan Anand will bid for his fourth consecutive title this year when he takes on Russian Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich in the opening round of the traditional Dortmund Sparkassen chess meeting 2001 on Thursday.

Having beaten Braingames World champion GM Vladimir Kramnik of Russia in the just-concluded Mainz Chess Classic, the Indian ace is on an all-time high, and should he continue with his ominous form, he will be a runaway winner.

The strongest ever tournament to be held in Germany will feature six leading Grandmasters of the world fighting in the Category-XI field. The event will reach its culmination on July 22.

The others in the fray are Kramnik, Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria, Peter Leko of Hungary and Michael Adams of England.

The event will be played on an all-play-all basis where every participant will play against his opponent twice to ensure even breaks in colours. After playing once against each other, the players will have to play the return games with reverse colours.

The prize fund is peanuts for a tournament of this stature but the appearance fee of the participants is very high. Reports have it that it runs into a five figure sum in US dollars. In all, the budget of the tournament is in the region of a million marks.

Four Indians in fray

The Indian quartet of Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, GM norm holders D V Prasad, P Konguvel and International Master R B Ramesh will also be vying for honours in the Open event.

While former national champion Kunte will seek to add a few ELO rating points, the stakes are much higher for the rest who will be vying for the coveted Grandmaster's norm.

Prasad, who got his first norm a few years ago, has not been in the best of form lately and it will take a great effort from him to do the turnaround and earn the elusive Grandmaster title.

Ranked No. 8 in the last National A, Prasad is an extremely dangerous opponent on known territory and carves out long and forceful attacking variations.

Konguvel got his first GM norm in the just-concluded National A but then lost momentum mid-way in the tournament. He finished sixth overall but the GM norm must have done a world of good to this hardworking ONGC officer.

He has it in him to spring a few big surprises and should he be consistent, he will be the next one knocking at the Grandmaster's title.

Ramesh qualified to the National A from the just-concluded National B tournament and is looking good with excellent opening preparation and good middlegame understanding.

There will be many GMs fighting for a total prize-money of 15,000 marks (about Rs 300,000), with the winner's purse being 2,000 marks (about Rs 40,000).

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