Kramnik-Aronian match announced, to be held in Zurich
The friendly match between Vladimir Kramnik and Levon Aronian will be held from 21 to 28 April in Zurich, Switzerland and will consist of six games played at classical time control. A first press release was distributed today by the Zurich Chess Club, which organizes the event.
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During the 11th round of the Tata Steel tournament, on January 27th in Wijk aan Zee, Vladimir Kramnik suddenly entered the press room. As it turned out, the ex-World Champion was to sign a contract later that evening together with Levon Aronian and a sponsor, for a 6-game match (classical games!) in the last week of April. More details would be announced soon, and today we received a first press release.
PRESS RELEASE
Zurich Chess Challenge: Kramnik vs. AronianThe Zurich Chess Club announces a six-game chess match between Vladimir Kramnik (Russia) and Levon Aronian (Armenia) from 21 to 28 April 2012. The numbers 2 and 3 of the World ranking will meet in the time-honored Hotel Savoy Baur en Ville at Paradeplatz, the venue of many a famous chess event in the past. Kramnik and Aronian are the winners of the two most prestigious tournaments of the last months. While the 36-year-old Kramnik has gained a convincing victory at the London Chess Classic in December, the 29-year-old Aronian has just won the famous tournament in Wijk aan Zee with an outstanding score. Both players belong to the hottest candidates in the World championship qualifier later this year. The Zurich Chess Challenge will be the first encounter in the history of chess between two players with a rating above the magical 2800 limit and it is the first ever friendly match at the top level. It is sponsored by Oleg Skvortsov, IGC International Gemological Laboratories and Aspeco N.V., Antwerp. About IGC International Gemological Laboratories About Aspeco N.V. About the Zurich Chess Club |
We can add the following details about the match, which were kindly provided by Vladimir Kramnik to us:
- The time control of the six classical games will be 2 hours for 40 moves, then 1 hour for 20 moves and then 15 minutes to finish the game, with an increment of 30 seconds from move 61.
- If a game lasts less than three hours, the players will play a rapid game with reversed colours (with 25 minutes plus 10 seconds increment on the clock).
This last feature was in fact a suggestion by Kramnik himself. It will be nice for the spectators, but also for the players because the whole idea of the match is that Aronian and Kramnik will get some more practice in a period when there are few tournaments.
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.”
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