Anand Vs Gelfand Match Website
The 2012 World Chess Championship match between Vishy Anand and Boris Gelfand starts on the 11th May, and the official match website is now live at http://moscow2012.fide.com.
The 12-game match will take place in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the main sponsor is the Russian entrepreneur Andrey Filatov.
The time control is 40 moves in 120 minutes, followed by 20 moves in 60 minutes, and then 15 minutes plus a 30 second increment to finish.
The match schedule (times are Moscow time = UTC+4 hours):
| Date | Event | Time | Date | Event | Time | |
| 11-May | Game 1 | 15:00 | 21-May | Game 8 | 15:00 | |
| 12-May | Game 2 | 15:00 | 22-May | Rest day | ||
| 13-May | Rest day | 23-May | Game 9 | 15:00 | ||
| 14-May | Game 3 | 15:00 | 24-May | Game 10 | 15:00 | |
| 15-May | Game 4 | 15:00 | 25-May | Rest day | ||
| 16-May | Rest day | 26-May | Game 11 | 15:00 | ||
| 17-May | Game 5 | 15:00 | 27-May | Rest day | ||
| 18-May | Game 6 | 15:00 | 28-May | Game 12 | 15:00 | |
| 19-May | Rest day | 29-May | Rest day | |||
| 20-May | Game 7 | 15:00 | 30-May | Tie break | 12:00 |
Anand (left) and Gelfand shake hands on the match agreement last year
The opening ceremony takes place on 10th May, when the players will draw lots for white/black in the first game. Colours then alternate, but are reversed after game 6 (the player with white in game 1 will play black in game 7).
If the match is level after 12 games there will be a 4-game rapid match tie-break at 25 minutes per game plus 10 second increment. If scores are still level a 2-game blitz match will be played at 5 minutes plus 3 second increment.
If the deadlock is not broken, there can be up to 5 of the these 2-game blitz matches before a sudden-death blitz game will decide the winner (5 minutes for white, 4 minutes for black, and a 3 second increment from move 61)
The head-to-head stats of Anand and Gelfand (from the official site) are:
- Classical Games: Anand 6 wins, Gelfand 5 wins, 24 draws
- Rapid Games: Anand 8 wins, Gelfand 1 win, 19 draws
- Blitz Games: Anand 3 wins, Gelfand 0 wins, 4 draws
Gelfand's last win in a classical game against Anand was in 1993 in Biel.
