World Chess Championship

The World Chess Championship is being held in Argentina. It's the first "legitimate" championship in about a decade. FIDE - the world chess organization - has feuded with the top players, such as Garry Kasparov, and mucked around with the championship's format, so recent World Championships haven't included the top players. However, FIDE has finally put together a tournament with most of the best chess players in the World.

The tournament is a double round robin with eight of World's best 16 players. I don't really know the details of how they picked who would get to play. (Kramnik, Ivanchuk, and Shirov are the only notable absentees). Kasparov retired earlier this year, so the championship is up for grabs.

Anand, ranked second in the World, behind Kasparov, was the favourite to win, but halfway through Veselin Topalov (ranked third) is 6-0-1 and has a large lead. I'll have to look over some of the games later this month.

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