World Championship starts in San Luis

The World Chess Championship in San Luis begins today, September 28, 2005, in San Luis, Argentina. The pairings have been published and the first round will see the following four encounters:

The games start at 15:00h local time in Argentina, which is 2 p.m. in New York, 7 p.m. in Britain and 20:00h in continental Europe. The exact times for your region of the world can be found here.

You can watch the games at the official site (link at the bottom of the page), or on the Playchess.com server. There we have arranged a live broadcast, with audio commentary by GM Yasser Seirawan (picture) and IM Andrew Martin. On each day of play one of these two commentators will appear periodically in the Playchess broadcast room and talk the audience through what is happining in San Luis.

A full schedule is given at the bottom of the page.

Games in progress

22:00h: The live coverage on Playchess is breaking all records. 30-40 GMs watching the games, including Garry Kasparov, who had just got back from a round-the-world trip (last stop: Vladivostok) and who is predicting two decided games (Anand would win, Leko-Topalov would be decided). Yasser Seirawan is doing amazing commentary, discussing the games with the public, who are working with chess engines (Yasser is using only human brain).

Fritz 9 users are experiencing something really cool: when you load all four games they do not appear in separate windows, but are displayed in multiple boards in a single window.

You can click on any game to transfer the focus of the notation and engine window. More about these new features when Fritz 9 is closer to production. The delivery date for the English version is October 31.

Picture gallery

The Hotel Potrero de los Funes, located directly next to the lake

Lounging on the deck in the beautiful Argentinian spring sunshine

The press center, also with a view of the lake

Press conference at the start of the event, with the FIDE president and the Governor

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in a good mood ta the press conference
(in the background are the two Peters: Svidler and Leko)

Preparing for the opening ceremony

Can you guess what this contraption is? Solution lower down on this page.

The playing venue, with the audience on all sides

We hear that the seats are loud since they snap back when people stand up. There are about 100 people in the audience today in round one. They will have to each learn to arise from their seats more carefully.

The openings presentation

With dancers – no, it is not Kasim, just someone who looks vaguely like him

Full schedule

Links

• Official World Chess Championship web site
• All ChessBase World Championship reports so far