Only 3 Spots Remaining in London Chess Classic
More than three-quarters of the 16 spots for the 5th London Chess Classic have now been filled. The festival will take place from December 7-15, 2013, with the marquee event running for the final five days.
GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Boris Gelfand, GM Peter Svidler, and GM Judit Polgar accepted their invitations last week. GM Vladimir Kramnik was already committed, as was GM Hikaru Nakamura.
The tournament will not be a classical time control this year. The organizers said this is to accomodate GM Viswanathan Anand, who will have just finished the world championship match in India (GM Magnus Carlsen is not currently on this list of players). The rapid event will be a hybrid "knockout" style, with advancement coming after six games of group play. See the format here.
The best half-dozen English players have also confirmed their participation: GM Luke McShane, GM Michael Adams, GM Nigel Short, GM Matthew Sadler, GM Gawain Jones and GM David Howell. This leaves only three spots left to be filled.
The Classic will again have a chess festival, including a FIDE Open and Women's Invitational.
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Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to more than 85 countries.
