London Chess Classic 2009
London is gearing-up for it's biggest chess tournament in 25 years, as the inaugural London Chess Classic gets underway on Tuesday 8 December at the Olympia Conference Centre.
Heading the impressive line-up is current world #2 Magnus Carlsen from Norway, and recent Tal Memorial winner and former world champion Vladimir Kramnik will be hoping to continue his run of good form.
American fans will be cheering for Hikaru Nakamura, and Ni Hua will be flying the flag for China. The field of eight players is rounded out by four of the best English players, including Nigel Short and Mickey Adams.
The full line-up:
| Carlsen, Magnus | NOR | 2801 |
| Kramnik, Vladimir | RUS | 2772 |
| Nakamura, Hikaru | USA | 2715 |
| Short, Nigel D | ENG | 2707 |
| Adams, Michael | ENG | 2698 |
| Ni, Hua | CHN | 2665 |
| McShane, Luke J | ENG | 2615 |
| Howell, David W L | ENG | 2597 |
The tournament format is a single round-robin with the classical time control of 40 moves in 2 hours, then 20 moves in 1 hour, followed by an extra 15 minutes and a 30 second increment to finish the game. The total prize fund is 100,000 euros.
Live games will be broadcast from this page at the official site. There are many other events taking place during the week, including a Korchnoi simultaneous exhibition, a women's invitational, and open and rapidplay competitions. Check the official site for details.
Carlsen is the newly crowned world blitz champion, but he recently lost in the BNbank blitz final against Nakamura. Videos of the games can be found here. How will they fare at the longer time control? Tune in to find out, and check for regular updates right here at Chess.com.
