The top players live again

Nothing to do during this Easter Weekend? Then I have good news for you. At this very moment many top chess players are playing a rapid tournament in Spain, and the games can be followed live. I’m talking about the Festival Villa de Cañada de Calatrava. On the participants list we see names such as Anand (he’s quite high on the new FIDE list), Mamedyarov (how good would he be in rapid?), Gelfand (who’s openings are still top-notch as we saw in Monaco), Ivanchuk (his play is still top-notch as we saw in Monaco), J. Polgar (wow, we haven’t seen her play since… Hoogeveen?), Grischuk (wow, we haven’t seen him play for ages) Bacrot (o yes, he’s quite strong too), Shirov (always great to watch) Sasikiran (isn’t he playing Sofia?), Milov (one of those players you always hear winnig opens in far away countries) and… Karpov! (no introduction needed).

Friday, Saturday and Sunday these giants play together with many others in one big Swiss group, at 10.00, 11.00 and 12.00 CET. The rate of play is 25 minutes per game. Why all these names came together over there becomes clear when you hear the first prize: 22,000 euros! It’s all happening in the Spanish town Cañada de Calatrava, not that far away from chess hot spots like Dos Hermanas and Linares:

Cañada de Calatrava

Google Map: Cañada de Calatrava

So the rapid tournament already started. At 17.00 today there’s a ‘Fischer-tournament’ (10 minutes a game for each player, Fischer Random/Chess960) with a 3000 euros first prize and tomorrow again at 17.00 there’s a blitz tournament (only three minutes a game plus two seconds increment) also with 3000 euros to play for. No idea if these two tournaments can be followed live as well. If yes, then we can already nominate this tournament for the trophy Best Tournament Website 2007.