Viswanathan Anand to start with black pieces

World champion Viswanathan Anand will start with black pieces in the first game of his World Chess Championship match against World no 1 Magnus Carlsen of Norway.

Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa picked Anand’s photo from a box and then picked the black piece from another box in the opening ceremony held at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium here on Thursday. World chess federation (Fide) president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov presided over the opening ceremony which went on for another hour with Indian and Norwegian dance programmes.

The first game will be played on Saturday, followed by the second on Sunday with Carlsen having black. The games will start at 3 pm at Hotel Hyatt Regency, the venue of the championship.

There will be a rest day after the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, 10th, 11th and 12th games. After the sixth game, the colours will be reversed so Anand would have black in the sixth and seventh games.

The players are fighting for a purse of $3 million with the winner standing to earn $1.45m and the loser just under $1m. Carlsen has already pocketed $137,000 of the prize fund for agreeing to play on his opponent’s home turf.

The time control for the 12 games will be: 40 moves in two hours for each player, the next 20 moves in one hour and 15 minutes for the rest of the game, with an increment of 30 seconds per move starting after move 61.

If the match goes into tiebreakers after a 6-6 tie in Classical chess, there will be a four 25-minute rapid chess games to break the tie. If that also ends in a tie, blitz chess mini-matches of two games each will be played. If the first set ends in a tie, the second, third and fourth will follow. In all five sets (10 games) will be played to break the tie.

Even then if the match is tied, the Armageddon (sudden death game) will be applied. In that game, white will get five minutes and black four but black needing only a draw to win the game and match. The rapid, blitz and Armageddon will have separate draw of lots to choose the colour.
The chief arbiter for the championship is, Ashot Vardapetyan from Armenia the same official who was in charge of the Anand-Boris Gelfand World championship match in 2012 in Moscow.

WHAT THEY DO AND WHAT THEY EAT
Carlsen checked into Fisherman’s Cove, a sea-side hotel in the city’s outskirts, till November 6 playing tennis, badminton and beach-volleyball, besides relaxing by the poolside.

The food was “medium-spicy as per Carlsen’s preference”, and his diet consisted of whole wheat croissants, cheese omelette with green chillies, and fresh mango juice.

On Wednesday, Carlsen moved to Hyatt Regency, the venue of the match. “There is a huge Norwegian contingent here with almost 50 journalists apart from Carlsen’s team. We have special menus to cater to them such as Norwegian smoked salmon and salmon steak. Carlsen’s chef will obviously have a say in what is being prepared for the player,” said a Hyatt Regency release.

Anand had already checked into the hotel last Sunday. Though he won’t be able to take long walks, he would be spending some time in the gym and the sauna at the hotel for fitness. “Anand ordered all kinds of cuisine, particularly Italian, Chinese, and Indian ,” the hotel release added.

SCHEDULE
Game 1: November 9
Game 2: November 10
Rest day: November 11
Game 3: November 12
Game 4: November 13
Rest day: November 14
Game 5: November 15
Game 6: November 16
Rest day: November 17
Game 7: November 18
Game 8: November 19
Rest day: November 20
Game 9: November 21
Game 10: November 22
Rest day: November 23
Game 11: November 24
Rest day: November 25
Game 12: November 26
Rest day: November 27

Tiebreaks and closing ceremony: November 28