Delhi tourney draws top class field
Grandmaster Parimarjan Negi, Airports Authority of India chairman V.P. Agarwal and All India Chess Federation secretary Bharat S
Grandmaster Radoslaw Wojtaszek of Poland will headline the field when the capital hosts the country’s strongest ever chess tournament, the `12 lakh prize money AICF-AAI Cup.
The six-player double round-robin format category-18 tournament will be played at the Airport Authority Club from December 20 to 30.
All players, with an average rating of over 2,675 ELO rating points, clash twice, once with white pieces and once with black. GM Wojtaszek was one of Viswanathan Anand’s seconds in his two successful world championship campaigns. Leading the charge against him will be GM Anton Korobov of Ukraine, who boasts of a 2700+ rating and Russia’s in-form player GM Evgeny Alekseev.
India will be represented by former national champion GM K. Sasikiran with 2008 world junior champion GM Abhijeet Gupta and reigning Asian champion Parimarjan Negi.
“New Delhi has not witnessed such a big event since the World Championship preliminaries in 2000 and I am sure that chess lovers would be keen to watch some of the best players in world in action” said V.P. Agarwal, chairman Airport Authority of India.
This is the second edition of the AICF-AAI Cup, which was a category-17 event last year. The tournament was won by Fabiano Caruana of Italy in its inaugural edition and the player has subsequently moved into the top-10 of the Fide world ranking.
Added All India Chess Federation secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan: “The list of players for this tournament is the best line up India have ever seen and we are expecting tough competition in the 10 days of the tournament.”
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