Anand/Topalov match postponed until 2010

A FIDE Presidential Board meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, had decided to postpone the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov until latest April 20th, 2010, and opened the bidding process. Originally the match was scheduled for September this year. [ChessBase]

The PB approved the new structure for FIDE Commissions and Committees the details of which will be announced on the FIDE website. The PB agreed on a commission to be set up to consider the zonal structure of FIDE. The PB approved changes in the Laws of Chess including that the default time would be zero unless otherwise specified in the regulations of the tournament. The PB finalized Title and Rating regulations and dealt with other matters left from the Dresden meetings. It agreed to postpone the World Championship Match between World Champion GM Anand and Challenger GM Topalov until the latest April 20th, 2010 and asked for bids for the match. The PB corrected the mistake done by the organizer of the World Senior Championship and announced GM Kaufmann and GM Suba as co-winners. The PB decided upon a commemoration schedule of the former world champions starting with W. Steinitz in 2009. [FIDE]

GM Anand is the current World Champion. He won the title in 2007 in Mexico City by placing first in an 8-player, double round-robin tournament. He defended his title against GM Kramnik in 2008 (Bonn, Germany) winning the 12-game match with a score of 6.5 in 11 games.

GM Topalov won the challengers match against GM Kamsky last month in Bulgaria with a score of 4.5 in 7 games. GM Topalov is currently the #1 rated player in the world.

First Women Chess Grand Prix begins this weekend

Chessbase.com and Chessdom.com report on the first Womens Chess Grand Prix tournament that starts this weekend in Turkey.

The Turkish Chess Federation in collaboration with FIDE and Global Chess is organising the first event for the new Women Grand Prix series 2009/2010. The tournament will be held in Istanbul, Turkey beginning on the 6th of March 2009. It will also be the second in a series organised by the Turkish Chess Federation commemorating the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The FIDE Women Grand Prix is a new series of elite tournaments which will be organised by FIDE and Global Chess. There will be 6 legs over two years in various countries around the world with three tournaments every year. The next tournament is planned in Nanjing, China at the end of September.

The winner of each tournament will win 6,500 euros ($8,151) out of a prize fund of 40,000 euros ($50,199) and the overall winner of the series will win a further 15,000 euros ($15,825) at the end of the series.

This will be one of the strongest women tournaments of all times and it is important to point out that there are three ex-world Champions taking part as well as the highest ranked women players in the world.

The final participant list is:
GM Humpy Koneru 2621
GM Yifan Hou 2571
GM Antoaneta Stefanova 2557
GM Pia Cramling 2548
GM Marie Sebag 2529
GM Maia Chiburdanidze 2516
GM Zhao Xue 2508
IM Elina Danielian 2496
WGM Shen Yang 2448
IM Martha Fierro 2403
WGM Zeinab Mamedjarova 2362
WIM Betül Cemre Yıldız 2214

IM Martha Fierro was a last minute replacement for GM Zhu Chen. The tournament average rating is 2481.3 and will include the #2-#5 rated females (Judit Polgar is #1) in the world. Round 1 is Saturday, March 7 at 6:00 am (Tucson time).

Official Tournament Website