Chess overload
It’s chess overload this week. I don’t remember this ever happening before, where three huge events are all starting up at the same time.
Feb. 17-27: Topalov vs. Kamsky candidates match
Topalov is the clear favorite, having regained the world #1 rating, and showing fantastic results lately. Kamsky is trailing Topalov by a good 80 points and has not really distinguished himself as a serious world championship contender since his 2007 World Cup victory. However, he has a reputation as a very strong match player. Also, this is merely an 8-game match, and the match can turn on just one win, so Kamsky is a live dog here..
Feb. 16-27: Aeroflot Open
Aeroflot is generally the strongest open tournament of the year. The winner gets an automatic invite into 2009 Dortmund supertournament.
Feb. 18-Mar. 8: Linares
Linares is arguably the most respected and prestigious of the annual ‘supertournaments’. This year’s field includes the World Champion Viswanathan Anand, along with Ivanchuk, Carlsen, Aronian, Radjabov, Grischuk, Yue, and Dominguez-Perez.
I don’t know if it’s a good thing that all these events are compressed together. With everything going on at once, it will be hard to give all these games their due attention. Also, there are so many dry spells during the year where there are no major events, I think I’d like to see things spread out some! But, what can you do? It will be a fun couple of weeks!
