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Contract Anand-Topalov signed

PeterDoggers
| 0 | Chess Event Coverage
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, representing the World Chess Federation and Stefan Sergiev, representing the Bulgarian Chess Federation, yesterday signed the contract for the organization of the Anand-Topalov World Championship match. The prize fund for the match is 2 million Euros and the dates are April 23rd (game 1) to May 12th, 2010 (possible tiebreaks).

Photo: FIDE.com

According to a brief report on the FIDE website the signing of the contract took place yesterday in Sofia, Bulgaria where the next World Championship match will be held.

"For 140 years of chess championship there have been 19 such world title matches, and all of them turned into historic battles. Why is it important for us that Bulgaria and Sofia were picked to host this historic event? We can just imagine that the opponent of our representative Topalov is a representative of India, a nation of over one billion people, vs. tiny Bulgaria of 8 million. It is an honor and pleasure for us to become a center of global attention with this match” Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said during the ceremony, as reported by Sofia News Agency Novinite.

We assume the signing of the contract means that FIDE has received a bank guarantee from the Bulgarians, which was not the case yet on October 16th when FIDE accepted the bid.

Besides, the match will start later than was suggested back then. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had in mind to celebrate his birthday (April 5th) with the start of the match, but now the date of the first game has been set to April 23rd, 2010. The World Championship match will consist of 12 games and if necessary, 4 tiebreak games on May 12th, 2010 so we presume a similar schedule as in Anand-Kramnik:

Apr 23 Game 1May 03 Game 8
Apr 24 Game 2May 04 rest day
Apr 25 rest dayMay 05 Game 9
Apr 26 Game 3May 06 Game 10
Apr 27 Game 4May 07 rest day
Apr 28 rest dayMay 08 Game 11
Apr 29 Game 5May 09 rest day
Apr 30 Game 6May 10 Game 12
May 01 rest dayMay 11 rest day
May 02 Game 7May 12 tiebreaks

(We've asked FIDE to confirm this.) Update Dec. 21, 14:39: FIDE finally confirmed these dates.
PeterDoggers
Peter Doggers

Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.

Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.

Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.

As our Director News & Events, Peter writes many of our news reports. In the summer of 2022, The Guardian’s Leonard Barden described him as “widely regarded as the world’s best chess journalist.”

In October, Peter's first book The Chess Revolution will be published!


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