Events to watch this year

The World Chess Championship 2012 will be a match between the current world champion Viswanathan Anand of India and Boris Gelfand of Israel. It will take place on May 10–31 in the Engineering Building of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia .The prize fund is 2.55 million US Dollars. Anand last defended his title by winning the World Chess Championship 2010 against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria. The challenger won the eight-player Candidate Matches comprising Topalov, Gata Kamsky, Shakriyar Mamedyarov,Alexander Grischuk, Levon Aronian, Vladimir Kramnik and Teimour Radjabov, Anand is 42 years old rated 2799 while Gelfand is a year older at 43 and rated 2727. The 47th Capablanca Memorial will be held from May 3-15 at the Riviera hotel in Havana, Cuba. The Elite Group will once again be a six-player double round robin. To date confirmed players are GM Vassily Ivanchuk (2766) of Ukraine, 5-times winner of Capablanca Memorial, and the Cuban GM Leinier Domínguez (2730), three-times winner, and Lázaro Bruzón (2691). The 7th Mikhail Tal Memorial will take place from 7th to 19th June, 2012, in Moscow, Russia. Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, Levon Aronian, Radjabov Teimour, Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana have confirmed the participation. Other players are Alexander Morozevich, Alexander Grischuk, Evgeny Tomashevsky and Luke Mchane. The Kings Chess Tournament will follow in Medias, Romania, from June 23 to July 4. It will include Viswanathan Anand, who would have just finished his World Chess Championship match with Gelfand. The world number one rated player Magnus Carlsen and the main contender to enter the 2800 club Teimour Radjabov will also participate despite their tight calendar, coming from the Tal Memorial 2012. Sergey Karjakin and Vassily Ivanchuk are also confirmed participants, while the organization will announce one Romanian player in the coming days. Another major event in the Fide calendar is the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul ,Turkey scheduled on August 27 to September 10. It is a biennial tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The Philippines has been participating since the 50s and an elimination series of tournaments is currently on-going to determine our representatives in both the Men and Women events. The Bilbao Grand Slam Final Masters, considered one of the world’s most prestigious, will take place from September 24 to October 13, 2012 and, as in previous editions, the world’s top-ranked players will participate. Two players have already qualified—Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and Russian Vladimir Kramnik (the former being number 1 in the world ranking and winner of the last edition of the Grand Slam Final and the latter, former world champion and winner of the 2010 Final) The rest of the participants of this great chess event in the Biscayan capital, also receiving direct invitations are Aronian ,the winner of the 2012 Tata tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Holland, and the winner of the 2012 Kings tournament in Bazna, Romania . The 4th London Chess Classic will take place on December 1-10 . Players are Levon Aronian ,Luke McShane Magnus Carlsen ,David Howell, Michael Adams ,Viswanathan Anand. And Nigel Short. Other events to watch in the Asian region are Asian Continental Championship in Vietnam on May 4-14 and Asean Age Group also in Vietnam on June 10-19 . Other events are the Asian Nations Cup in Zao Zuang,China ,the Asian Junior U20 in Tashkent,Uzbekistan and the Asian Schools Championship and U5 Kindergarten in Davao from October 20-29. boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com