Chennai bids for Anand-Gelfand match

After Moscow FIDE has now also received a bid from Chennai to host the Anand-Gelfand World Championship Match next year. This was announced yesterday afternoon in Chennai by the FIDE President and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State Mme J. Jayalalithaa. Chennai is planning to spend 200 million rupees (approximately $4.5 million).

By winning the Candidates matches in Kazan, Russia earlier this year Boris Gelfand of Israel earned the right to play a World Championship match against the current champion, Vishy Anand of India. At the end of last month we brought the news that the Russian Chess Federation had placed a bid to organize the match in Moscow. Now India has placed a bid too, as was reported today on the FIDE website.

The bid was announced yesterday afternoon in Chennai by the FIDE President and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu State Mme J. Jayalalithaa. Chennai is planning to spend 200 million rupees (approximately $4.5 million).



Based on a press release in Tamil, Chessbase writes that the Tamil Nadu Government "has placed a winning bid" which "is likely to go through on July 31, 2011". This is the closing date for bids for the 2012 World Championship Match, so there are still eighteen days to go. A bid from Israel might pop up, an improved bid from Moscow, who knows!?

In any case, the Chennai bid is good news, given the acrimonious withdrawal of the London bid and apparent difficulties finding organisers. There seems to be no reason any more to be sceptical about this title match getting organized.