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Mikhail Tal Memorial 2012

It’s almost time for the most exciting chess tournament of the year to begin. The seventh annual Tal Memorial Chess Tournament in Moscow  will have its opening ceremonies on June 7. It is important to clarify the distinction between the main tournament and the blitz tournament do to the fact that the same 10 players will battle in the blitz event to decide the order of their opponents. The Blitz event also has a separate prize fun of 15,000 euros and the top five will receive one more game with the white pieces during the main event.

The 2012 Mikhail Tal Memorial main event should be an incredibly exciting chess spectacular. The ten combatants are made up largely of the best and brightest stars of chess. A controversial rule for the tournament states that the players are not allowed to offer a draw before  40 moves have been played.  Mixing the most exciting chess players with a rule that forbids early draws and then adding a 100,000 euro prize fund should be a recipe for an exciting chess tournament.

Tournament details for the 2012 Mikhail Tal Memorial are as follows:

Location: Moscow, Russia

Format: 10 player round-robin(nine rounds.)

Time Control: 1 hour 40 minutes for 40 moves plus 50 minutes for 20 moves plus 15 minutes for the rest of the game with a 30 second increment per move, starting from the first move.

Contestants:

1. Magnus Carlsen

Magnus is known as the “Mozart of chess” and is the world’s number one rated chess player. This young gun took the first place prize at the 2011 Mikhail Tal Memorial.

2.  Levon Aronian

Levon is the world’s second highest rated chess player with an incredible rating of 2823. At last years Mikhail Tal memorial he finished the main event tied for first with Magnus.

3. Vladimir Kramnik

Kramnik is the third and final member of the current 2800 rating club. Vladimir Kramnik is also a former World Chess Champion and recently won the London Chess Classic ahead of both Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian.

4.  Teimour Radjabov

Teimor Radjabov is ranked number four in the world with a current FIDE rating of 2784. Teimor became a a chess grand master at the young age of 14 which makes him the second youngest ever to achieve the grand master title.

5. Hikaru Nakamura

Hikaru is the fifth highest rated chess player on earth. Hikaru just finished winning the United States Chess Championship and is in excellent form.

6. Fabiano Caruana

At age 19 Fabiano is the youngest chess player in the field. Don’t think for a second that his age is a handicap. The young Italian is currently rated at 2769 which is only 11 points behind Viswanthan Anand.

7. Alexander Morozevich

Morozevich shares the same rating of 2769 with Caruana. Alexander is my favorite chess player in the field do to his risky style which produces few draws. Unfortunately for Alexander, his style is perfectly suited for a World Championship match but not ideal for this tournaments format.

8. Alexander Grischuk

Grishchuk won both the Russian Championship and the Linares Chess Tournament in 2009. Alexander seems ready for a big performance to rejoin the top 10 in the world.

9. Evgeny Tomashevsky

Tomashevsky is known as the “professor” do to the fact that he plays positional chess like an old man despite his young age.

10. Luke McShane

McShane should never be underestimated. Of all his notable results, my favorite is the fact that he won the World Chess Championship for players under the age of ten at the age of eight. McShane is very popular with chess enthusiasts and was voted into the Tal Memorial by his many fans.

Please return to this chess blog for updates and analysis on the 2012 Mikhail Tal Memorial chess tournament from Moscow, Russia.

Published by chessmusings

Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California. Chris Torres served as the President of the Torres Chess and Music Academy from 2005-2020 and currently is recognized as a correspondence chess master with the United States Chess Federation. Since 1998 Chris Torres has taught 6 individual national champions as well as led multiple school teams to win national championship titles. In addition, Chris Torres has directed and taught at 10 different schools which have been California State Champions at chess. In 2011 and 2012, several former and current students of Chris Torres have been selected to represent the United States at the World Youth Chess Championships. Mr. Torres’ hobbies include playing classical guitar and getting his students to appear on the national top 100 chess rating lists.

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