Anand and Topalov first meet in China

Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov, who will play a World Championship match next year, first meet each other behind the chess board twice in September in China. The two will play in the 2nd Nanjing Grand Slam together with Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Dmitry Jakovenko and a Chinese player yet to be announced.

Gujuan Tzu, who runs the Sina Chess News Blog and is becoming a valuable source of information for chess in China, informed us that the 2nd Pearl Spring Grand Slam tournament will take place September 27th - October 9th in Nanjing, China.

The field is close to being finalised and it can be announced that Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen, Teimour Radjabov, Dmitry Jakovenko [and] a Chinese player will be competing.

It seems most likely that Wang Yue will be the last name to be added to the participants list, as the highest rated player of the July 2009 FIDE rating list. (The English version of the official website has not been updated yet, but on the Chinese pages the photo of Bu Xiangzhi is shown.)

Again, the tournament will be a 6-player double round robin and just like last year, but this time officially, it will be the first tournament of the new Grand Slam series. Shortly before the tournament, during the first two weeks of September, the 2nd Grand Slam Masters Final takes place in Bilbao, Spain with Grischuk, Karjakin, Shirov and Topalov.

Also in Nanjing from September 27th to October 9th the 2nd Fide Women Grand Prix tournament will be held, with again 12 female top players competing. The 1st edition in the 2009-2010 series was held March 5-20 this year and was won by Humpy Koneru.

Links

• Official site (in English, not updated yet)
• Official site (in Chinese, with more information and pictures)